204 Profitable Potdtry Keeping. 



adopt this plan. The giving of room allows the chicks to 

 run and fly about, which develops their wing and breast 

 muscles, keeps them in health, and assists their growth. 

 Nothing is more miserable than to see chickens, from a 

 month to three months old, cooped up in a small run. No 

 wonder they grow slowly, and are always small and stunted in 

 appearance. 



As we have given a detailed acount uf the various incuba- 

 tors now offered for sale, together with a brief history of the 

 question of artificial incubation itself, it is necessary that we 

 should say something about artificial rearing, for one would 

 naturally appear to depend upon the other. All poultry keepers 

 have at some period been troubled with bad sitters, and, 

 also, with clumsy, negligent mothers, the latter especially, 

 being very annoying. It is, doubtless, very provoking to have 

 a setting of eggs spoiled, but it is even more annoying, when 

 they have been hatched, and the chicks are running about 

 strong and lively, to find some crushed to death, and others 

 dying for want of proper attention from the hen. Hence 

 many attempts have been made, to solve the problem of rear- 

 ing by artificial means. 



These artificial mothers were in use by a few persons, a 

 considerable time before incubators arrived at anything like 

 their present stage of perfection, and, as might naturally be 

 expected, they are now very largely used. At first the makers 

 of incubators fitted them to their machines, but this, we 

 believe, helped to make the latter even more unsuccessful 

 than they otherwise might have been, for when any chickens 

 were brought out, they were necessarily kept in runs a foot 

 or two square, and, of course, indoors, so that in a few days 

 they died off, from want of fresh air and proper exercise. 

 The first step towards success was in the separation alto- 

 gether of the mother from the incubator, and they have, 

 since this has been done, been found most successful. At 



