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POULTRY FARM SCHOOL AT GAMBAIS. 



The School of Aviculture at Gambais, near Houdan, 

 France, was founded by Decree of the Minister of Agricul- 

 ture in 1888, on a farm where the present directors had 

 successfully carried on artificial incubation for some years 

 previously. 



The village of Gambais is situated in a district where 

 poultry farming is extensively carried on. The value of fat 

 pullets annually sold in recent years at Houdan has been 

 estimated at ^76,800, and the total output of the district ? 

 including sales on farms, reached £960, 200. 



At the farm at Gambais the appliances used are more or 

 less the invention of the original founders, who have intro- 

 duced many improvements in existing machines. 



Heat, moisture, and aeration are the principal factors in 

 the process of incubation. The heat is now arranged so as 

 to come from above, and being thus directed on the entire 

 surface of the drawers in which the eggs are arranged is 

 more evenly distributed ; and it is claimed as a further 

 advantage that the eggs, by receiving the warmth from 

 above, are, in this respect, in the same condition as if under 

 the hen. Regular aeration is obtained by pipes running 

 along each side of the apparatus, and an outlet at the same 

 time secured for the carbonic acid disengaged by the 

 embryos. The requisite degree of moisture is ensured by 

 taking advantage of the difference between the temperature 

 of the drawers and that of the surrounding atmosphere, the 

 two currents being broug'ht into contact by the lateral pipes 

 already referred to ; a moist vapour is the result, similar to 

 that observable on the windows of a room in winter. 



The new hydro-incubator used here is capable of accommo- 



K K 



