A POULTRY COMPENDIUM. 3I 



quite a number of them, and several weeks will elapse 

 before she becomes broody (provided she does not belong 

 to the non-sitting varieties, in which case your waiting 

 would be in vain), and you can prepare for chickens. 

 Incubation is an interesting process, and you may indulge 

 your tastes in it in two kinds, natural and artificial. 

 Natural incubation, of course, is where one makes use of 

 the hen to hatch the chickens, and generally to bring 

 them up. The first thing to be done, after you dis- 

 cover a hen giving infallible signs of a desire to sit, is 

 to provide for her a suitable nest in a suitable place. 

 The place should be secluded and where other hens 

 cannot get to her, either to lay in the same nest or to 

 quarrel with her over its possession, and to break a por- 

 tion of the eggs in their struggles. If it be early in the 

 season, make the nest in as warm and sheltered a place 

 as possible, and of plenty of broken straw or hay, pressed 

 down so as to make it slightly concave, just enough to 

 keep the eggs from rolling out, but not concave enough 

 to make them roll against each other, each one tending 

 to the center of the nest. If it be a little later in the 

 season, make your nest by cutting a sod of suitable size 

 to fit the box or barrel in which the nest is to be 

 made ; invert the sod and hollow out the nest, and 

 cover with a thin sprinkling of straw, hay or leaves. If 

 you cannot conveniently get a sod, fill your box with 

 earth from which the larger stones have been removed, 

 and in this earth shape the nest as before described. 



Remove your sitter to the nest at night, placing un- 

 der her a number of nest eggs, until you are satisfied 

 that she "means business ;" then you can remove the 



