THE FIRST HATCH 139 
«No, but 170 fertile eggs, and that spoils 
a twenty-dollar bill and a lot of good time. 
What in the name of the black man ever got 
into that lamp of mine is more than I know. 
It’s just my luck!” 
“It’s everybody’s luck who tries to raise 
chickens by wholesale, and we must copper it. 
Don’t be downed by the first accident, Sam; 
keep fighting and you’ll win out.” 
The brooder-house was ready when the first 
chicks picked the shells on the 24th, and 
within thirty-six hours we had 6503 little 
white balls of fluff to transfer from the four 
incubators to the brooder-house. We put about 
a hundred together in each of five brooders, 
fed them cut oats and wheat with a little coarse 
corn meal and all the fresh milk they could drink, 
and they throve mightily. 
The incubators were filled again on the 26th, 
and from that hatch we got 552 chicks. On the 
2ist of March they were again filled, and on 
the 13th of April we had 477 more to add to 
the colony in the brooder-house. For the last time 
we started the lamps April 15th, and on the 6th 
of May we closed the incubating cellar and found 
that 2109 chicks had been hatched from the 
4000 eggs. The last hatch was the best of 
all, giving 607. I don’t think we have ever had 
as good results since, though to tell the truth I 
have not attempted to keep an exact count of 
eggs incubated. My opinion is that fifty per 
