IN QTTANTITT, FOE MARKET. 11 



with US. It never has been done — to any extent. And we 

 doubt if it will be done in either country, at present.* 



But let us note how the artificial hatching of chickens is 

 manipulated in Egypt, where millions of hens' eggs are every 

 year used, in their peculiar style of " oven," and incubated by 

 common fire heat — as all of us are aware, who have studied 

 chicken-historj' carefully. 



A quaint old volume, written over a hundred and thirty 

 years ago by Monsieur de Reaumur, of the Royal Academy of 

 Sciences at Paris, and printed for C. Davis, over-against Gray's 

 Inn Gate, London, in 1750, is devoted principally to the 

 hatching of domestic poultry by means of artificial heat — 

 "either in hot-beds, or by that of common fire." This is a 

 studied dissertation upon the mode for hundreds of years in 

 vogue among the Bermeans, in Egypt ; where millions of chick- 

 ens are annually and successfully raised without mother-hens". 



But this occurs in Egypt, and the modus operandi through 

 which this colossal result is there attained, has ever been — 

 as it still is — virtually a secret. 



In the early numbers of the third volume of "Wade's Fanciers' 

 Journal," there appear some interesting articles upon, this 

 topic, which we quote from. In the work by Monsieur de R, 

 Father Sicard tells us that "we ought not to wonder that 

 this peculiar method of hatching chickens should not be known 

 in Europe ; since it is unknown even in a great part of Egypt. 

 It is a secret, limited there to a single village, called Berme, 

 located in the Delta, sixty miles from Cairo — and a few ad- 

 joining places." The inhabitants of Berme teach this secret to 

 their children — but successfully keep it from all strangers. 

 In the proper season, the Bermeans disperse themselves around, 



* The above was written before the long and interesting account of Mr. Wm. C. Baker*s 

 ejrtraordinaiy success in hatching chickens by artificial heat at Cresskill, Bergen Co., New 

 Jersey, was made public, within my knowledge. Since the first editions of this book were 

 published, that account appears in the Hartford Poultey World, copiously illustrated ; 

 and by permission of H. H. Stoddard, Esq., (who loans us copies of the drawings) we in- 

 sert this important article in fifteen pages at tlie end of this edition of our book — to 

 which the special attention of the reader is here referred. G. P. B. 



