BEGINNING ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION 6l 



of confidence in artificial hatching, among many who 

 rank as leaders, before unknown. I attribute it chiefly 

 to the poultry world having passed from under the 

 domination of the non-moisture idea. One worker, 

 who said he would scorn to get less than 70 per cent or 

 80 per cent of the eggs put in, in good, livable chicks, 

 attributed his own success, so uniform, to the use of a 

 first-class hygrometer. 



In selecting a machine, the crucial point seems to 

 be to get one well ventilated, with a good case made 

 of seasoned wood, and with proper packing and a good 

 thermostat regulator. The trouble does not usually, in 

 these days, lie with the regulator. I once bought a 

 one-hundred-egg machine for ten dollars. It had 

 double doors (the inner one of glass), the best lamp 

 I have used, the best outside case I have seen on 

 any machine, and a good regulator. In all these it was 

 almost faultless. Yet it would not keep up heat in a 

 room below 60 degrees and it had an egg tray that 

 sagged and billowed enough to make a dangerous vari- 

 ation in temperatures. The brooder that went with it 

 was worthless, even as a " fireless." I could never see 

 why, with so much that was above the average, two 

 slouchy points should have been permitted to spoil the 

 machine. 



Once the eager Beginner has become possessed of 

 a machine of good, all-around type, and enough un- 

 chilled, well-graded, well-shelled, fertile, uniform eggs, 

 we may bid him good speed toward the goal, reiterating 

 once more the warning : " Follow the directions of 

 the man who has used the machine the most times, 

 under every imaginable condition ; namely, the maker." 



