August, 1912 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS iii 
plan is now a safe one, although long con- 
sidered not to be. 
Many extremists use houses the fronts 
of which are entirely open, being covered 
only with poultry wire to keep the hens in 
and intruders out. This plan may be fol- 
lowed safely if canvas, muslin or burlap 
curtains are so arranged that they may be 
dropped in front of the perches on cold 
nights. Probably the best arrangement for 
a small poultry house is secured by having 
an opening running the long way of the 
house and with the bottom about two feet 
above the floor, with an ordinary window 
at one end of this opening and extending 
almost to the foor. A muslin curtain may 
be tacked to a frame hinged to the top of 
the opening, but should be used only when 
the weather is stormy or very cold. The 
opening is high enough so that the wind 
will not blow directly on the birds, but the 
glass window will admit sunlight to the 
floor early in the morning. The glass will 
also serve to light the house better when 
the muslin curtain is closed. 
AN INCUBATOR AGES OLD 
N a lonely village lying in the midst of 
dry Egyptian sands, chickens are being 
incubated to-day, according to a correspond- 
ent of the Chicago News, just as in Biblical 
times and on a scale and by a method cal- 
culated to astonish European and American 
poultry raisers. Evernest Kellerstrass, a 
poultry expert of Kansas City, Mo., recently 
visited one of these Egyptian incubators. 
“Of course,’ he said, “it is known by 
all chicken fanciers that incubation was car- 
ried on in Egypt in ancient times. Person- 
ally, however, I did not dream that it was 
still being carried on by the same archaic 
method. It was the porter of a hotel in 
Cairo, who, finding that I was interested 
in meeting the local egg merchants, sug- 
gested that I might find an incubator in 
some village. 
“A few days later a man came and in- 
formed me that he could conduct me to a 
village where there was an incubator. So 
we took a train inland and then after riding 
on mules for several hours arrived at a 
village where, sure enough, there was a 
thriving incubator. The proprietor was a 
tall, old Arab. 
“The incubator, like the house that ad- 
joined it, was built of adobe and shaped 
like a beehive. I entered it by a small oval 
door. The place was full of smoke, but I 
distinguished within the great beehive six 
objects resembling smaller beehives. There 
were three on each side. Each of these 
was raised on a table above the floor and 
was pierced with a small oval opening. 
These were the ovens. They were supplied 
with heat from circular fireplaces beneath, 
in which straw and chaff were kept smol- 
dering without coming to a blaze. In each 
oven there were no less than 6,000 eggs. 
There was an open spot in the center where 
one of the children crawled in to turn the 
eggs. 
“One oven happened to be hatching when 
I was there, and it was a wonderful sight 
to see the chickens popping out by the 
dozens. A boy inside was busy clearing 
away the shells and also gathering up hand- 
fuls of chickens when dry and tossing them 
on a pile of chaff. I was naturally aston- 
ished. The Arab assured me that his an- 
cestors had incubated in this manner as far 
back as human memory reached. We be- 
lieve in America that an incubator must 
have 103 degrees of heat. Here there are 
no thermometers and the Arab said he 
gauged the temperature by sticking his hand 
inside. Using my thermometer, I found 
Message Bearers Ancien 
Pheidippides, the most noted runner of 
ancient Greece, made a record and an ever- 
lasting reputation by speeding 140 miles 
from Athens to Sparta in less than two days. 
Runners trained to perfection composed 
the courier service for the transmission of 
messages in olden times. But the service 
was so costly it could be used only in the 
interest of rulers on occasions of utmost 
importance. 
The Royal messenger of ancient times has 
given way to the democratic telephone of 
to-day. Cities, one hundred or even two 
thousand miles apart, are connected in a 
few seconds, so that message and answet 
follow one another as if two persons were 
talking in the same room. 
2 
This instantaneous telephone service not 
only meets the needs of the State in great 
emergencies, but it meets the daily needs 
of millions of the plain people. There can 
be no quicker service than that which is 
everywhere at the command of the 
humblest day laborer. 
Inventors have made possible communica- 
tion by telephone service. The Bell System, by 
connecting seven million people together, has 
made telephone service so inexpensive that it 
is used twenty-five million times a day. 
Captains of war and industry might, at great 
expense, establish their own exclusive tele- 
phone lines, but in order that any person hav- 
ing a telephone may talk with any other per- 
son having a telephone, there must be One 
System, One Policy and Universal Service. 
AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY 
AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES 
Every Bell Gelephone is the Center of the System 
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