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By the seventh day the little fellow becomes very vigorous and 

 active, and instead of remaining quiet, he dives about. He is in a 

 swimming bag. The thinnest albumen surrounds the embryo. The rea- 

 son he is kept in this bag is that he may not get too much air through 

 the porous shell. By the eleventh day the chick is complete in all its 

 parts. Even the feathers and toes and nails have begun to be formed. 

 Thus we see that in eleven days a miracle, as it were, has been per- 

 formed in a common hen's egg. 



Eggs are not laid simply to be gulped down by humans. There 

 never was an egg laid for that purpose, but every egg that a hen 

 has laid was produced because she desired to propagate her own kind. 



Most of us, when we start in the business, are not satisfied to 

 raise chickens by the natural method. Many of us want to keep the 

 hens laying all the time, and hatch them in other ways. The natural 

 consequence is that we get incubators. 



NATURAL HATCHING. 



In the springtime select a room where you can have the hens 

 altogether, get rid of the vermin, place fresh straw in the nests and 

 have everything perfectly clean. Get a water fountain and orange 

 boxes for nests. Set as many hens at one time as you can. Let them 

 out every morning for a half hour and see that they go back on the 

 nests. Nail narrow slats up before the nests and you can have each 

 hen under perfect control. This may be done systematically, care- 

 fully and successfully. 



ARTIFICIAL HATCHING. 



You ask me what is the best incubator. I do not know. There 

 are many good and many poor machines. We have no perfect in- 

 cubator yet. There are three things to look out for in choosing an 

 incubator. Select one that has been successful in your locality, one 

 that is made of good material. Do not get one that is made of wood 

 varnished over for selling, and not for hatching chickens. Get a good 

 incubator on guaranty or trial. Don't pay for the machine until you 

 have tested it. Place it on a level and get the lamp in the right place. 

 Use good oil. Good oil will not clog the wick or form gases. Start 

 the lamp and get the temperature up to one hundred and two degrees. 

 Get several thermometers the ten-cent ones will do. Test them, 

 and then place them at various places on the egg tray. Sometimes 

 there will be a variation of several degrees from the front to the back. 

 If you find that on the level there is a degree difference, raise the ma- 

 chine on the colder side, and this will help adjust the temperature. 

 I have sometimes found eight degrees difference from the front to 

 the back on the level of the egg tray. 



When you have placed the eggs on the tray, see that they are 

 moved around from day to day, so as to average the temperature, 

 especially during the first ten days or two weeks. First, the flame 

 should be turned out for a half hour and the eggs placed on the tray, 

 then light the lamp and let the incubator gradually heat up. The 

 temperature should be one hundred and one degrees the first week, 

 out' hundred and two the second and one hundred and three the third 

 week. This means the temperature at tln> level of the tops of the eggs, 

 the temperature nearest the little white spot. If I run the temper- 



