172 MAKING POULTRY PAY 



dark by the feel of it. At first I used an egg tester. 

 But this was too slow, and I resorted to the hand 

 process as the most rapid way. 



Dark or brown shelled eggs are hard to test satis- 

 factorily. I never am satisfied with a test of such 

 eggs. The shells are thick and not transparent, and 

 much of the testing of them is mere guesswork. White 

 shelled eggs are easily tested. An expert can test 

 duck eggs when they have been in the incubator four 

 or five days. The shells are like tinted glass and the 

 Avhite of the egg translucent. 



I advise beginners to wait until the tenth or 

 ■twelfth day before testing, and to do it at night, with 

 a brilliant light. I have tested eggs in dayUght in 

 a dark room, having a small space for the sun to 

 strike the egg, and testing can be done very suc- 

 cessfully. 



Moisture — ^The question of moisture is pretty 

 nearly settled. There has been more argument, pro 

 and con, on the moisture question than on anything 

 pertaining to artificial incubation. The hot air machines 

 revolutionized the moisture question and prac- 

 tically settled it, as the makers announced that no 

 water pans were necessary, no moisture was needed 

 in the egg chamber except the moisture generated 

 by the eggs in the drying out process. This at once 

 looked reasonable, and breeders began to study things. 

 And when they tried their incubators without mois- 

 ture pans and got as good and better hatches than 

 they did with moisture they very sensibly adopted 

 the new idea as the best. A hen will hatch as well 

 up in the haymow as on the ground or in the cellar 

 or under the barn. All farmers know this to be true. 

 Birds build nests in trees, and several species of ducks 

 nest and hatch their young in trees. The size of the 



