194 ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION. 



open in fine weather, into a small yard, also one to open into a 

 box with wire front, (over the Eecaleobion,) which is moderately 

 heated from a small stove; in this box is an artificial mother, 

 made of rabbit skin?, (I have also one made of the skin of a fowl,) 

 hung about two inches from the bottom, where the chicks are 

 first placed ; in three or four days they are let into an adjoining 

 apartment, where there is a sheepskin mother ; over this is another, 

 with a sheepskin raised higher at one end than the other, for chickens 

 further advanced to run under, with a small yard attached. In the 

 glass building is a platform sixteen feet by four, about four feet above 

 the ground floor, for chickens still further advanced, with a yard to 

 it They are next shut out from this apartment, and run with the 

 full grown fowls. 



All these apartments will accommodate about five hundred chickens, 

 of the different ages. This mode of hatching and rearing them is 

 attended with less than half the loss that usually takes place when 

 hatched and reared by the hen. "With regard to feed for the first 

 two or three meals, I give grated stale wheat bread, laid on a sanded 

 floor ; next, I give bread boiled in milk, and while hot, mix coarse 

 ground Indian meal with it, making it nearly dry. For the older 

 fowls, I give wheat screenings and whole corn, with once a week 

 boiled meat. 



It will here be seen that I have made the management of eggs as 

 plain and simple as Capt. Cooke did, " when he stood one on its 

 point" 



Yours, most respectfully, JOSEPH S. KEEN. 



ECCALEOBION. This is an apparatus put in operation some 

 years ago, for artificial hatching. The name is of Greek origin, 

 and signifies to draw out life. The chicks were hatched^ by 

 means of heated air. The form of the apparatus was an oblong 

 box three feet wide, nine feet long, and three feet high. It was 

 successful, but not adapted to cheap and general practical incu- 

 bation. 



POLOTOKIAN. Here is another " jaw-cracking " machine that 

 Mr. E. Bayer, of Brooklyn, N. Y., put in operation in 1843, and 

 succeeded very well in the process of hatching, not loosing over 

 twenty-five per cent, of the eggs. The temperature best 

 adapted to hatching, he found kTbefrom 101 to 102 F. He 

 applied heated air. 



AMERICAN EGG-HATCHING MACHINE. Some six years ago, 

 a machine was exhibited in the city of New York, under the 

 above name. It was constructed of tin, with an incubating 

 chamber surrounded by water of a suitable temperature, kept 

 warm by a spirit lamp, at a cost, it is said, of less than ten cents 

 a day ! It was about two and a half feet in length and breadth, 



