THE REARING FIELD. 55 



allowing seven hens to each hundred. Hens jump 

 about, are uneasy, and require a great deal of atten- 

 tion at hatching time. So, more especially if the 

 eggs are to be finished under hens, and no incubator 

 brought into play, confine your hatching operations 

 to batches of 500 or less, to follow each other about 

 every three days. I always feel a sneaking mistrust 

 for the keeper who insists upon having his thousand 

 eggs all packed up and sent away on the same day, 

 and long to ask him if he is quite certain that he has 

 at the moment at least seventy absolutely quiet hens, 

 ready waiting to receive them, and how he proposes 

 to tackle the 700 or 800 young birds, which, if he is 

 lucky, and has managed his hens well during the 

 period of incubation, he may reasonably expect to 

 hatch out. We tested our early set eggs on April 28, 

 1887, and found the average of fertility to be a shade 

 over 88 per cent. No ; the wise man will have his 

 eggs in three or four batches at a few days' interval, 

 and will profit accordingly. 



Leaving this digression, I will give a few more 

 practical hints for rendering the hatching field as safe 

 and suitable as may be. I will presume that you have 

 selected a meadow which boasteth not of a public 

 pathway running through or across it. Boys at some 

 future period may become useful members of society, 

 but they are decidedly out of place in a hatching field, 

 as are old women, students, loafers, et hoc genus omne^ 

 out for a walk. If the day be fine, your coops offer 



