58 BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 



through which he is practically assured of all the eggs he 

 can use. If local eggs to the number desired are not 

 obtainable one must buy where he can. As the demand 

 for eggs for winter chickens increases more and more, 

 poultry keepers are preparing to supply it, and advertising 

 eggs at this season, though the supply is and doubtless will 

 long continue to be very limited in comparison with the 

 offerings after midwinter. It is a good plan when buying 

 eggs in large quantities for incubators to make sure that 

 they are from desirable stock, and if the yards from which, 

 one proposes to secure eggs are at all accessible it is worth 

 while to visit them for that purpose. A little time and a 

 dollar or two, or even more, spent in this way, would 

 prove to be wise expenditure, if it saved one from buying 

 some thousands of eggs that might hatch well, but not 

 chicks that would make satisfactory poultry. 



35. Operating the Incubators. — As with every incu- 

 bator sold goes a book of instructions as t.o the running of 

 that particular make of machine, it would be superfluous 

 to go into full details in a book of this kind, and I give as 

 likely to be more useful to the reader a few general state- 

 ments in regard to the management of incubators on plants 

 where many are in operation. Some of the things I have 

 to say may be found also in books of instructions, but my 

 observation has been that many amateur operators are but 

 little impressed by the general advices and cautions in lists 

 of instructions, but having informed themselves on the few 

 specific rules which they have to know in order to run the 

 machine at all, pay no attention to the rest. 



Perhaps the most common causes of failures with incuba- 

 tors are carelessness and neglect in attending to the 



