April 25.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
55 
therefore it is not at all a more expensive mode of feeding 
than with loaf-sugar or with honey.* 
Purchasing Swarms. —It will be better for those persons 
whose intention it is to purchase swarms, to select those 
kinds of hives they prefer, and to send them to the person of 
whom tlie swarms are purchased that the bees may be hived 
into them; and it must be remembered that the swarm pur¬ 
chased must be removed to the place it is intended to remain 
in for the summer upon the evening of the day on which it 
swarmed; this is most, important, for if delayed even till the 
next morning its destruction will, in all probability, be the 
result. 
Queen Wasps are only now making their appearance, and 
should be destroyed as much as possible, for each one be¬ 
comes the founder of a nest, computed to contain at least 
50,000 robbers. The destruction of the queens, therefore, is 
important both to the gardener as well as to the apiarian, 
and I have found the syringe a very useful instrument in 
effecting this object; as soon as they are seen to alight dis¬ 
charge a syringe full of water upon them, which is sure to 
bring them to the ground, when they may be crushed easily 
with the foot. 
ARTIFICIAL HATCHING. 
The art of hatching eggs artificially by the aid of ovens 
has been long practised in China and in Egypt; whilst of 
later years, in Europe, M. Reaumur, the celebrated naturalist, 
reduced the practice to a system, adopting any source of heat 
that would keep up a regular temperature of 96°. He also 
invented hollow covers (being low boxes lined with fur), which 
he named artificial parents, for the chickens to brood under. 
Since the time of M. Reaumur, we have seen one or more 
contrivances for hatching, in which the heat was supplied by 
a constantly burning jet of gas. Lastly, Mr. Cantello, of 4, 
Leicester-squaxe, London, has invented an apparatus for 
carrying on artificial hatching upon a large scale. Some of 
the results of his experience he has published in a pamphlet, 
well worth the sixpence charged for it, entitled A Practical 
Exposition of the Cantelonian System of Hatching Eggs, Ac., 
by Hydro-incubation. From this we will make a few extracts. 
Mr. Cantello urges the importance of applying heat to the 
egg from above it; in which mode of application we do not 
see any importance, for under the hen, when sitting close, 
there is one uniform temperature, and she turns the eggs 
daily. Nor is Mr. Cantello entitled to the discovery “thatthe 
blood-heat of the feathered tribe is because many 
years ago, in the Memoirs of the Geneva Natural History 
Society, Dr. Berger stated, that the temperature of water- 
fowl is 108°, of domestic fowls, 107°, and of pigeons, 109° 
(Thomson’s Animal Chem., 029). 
Turning Eggs. —“ The fowl,” says Mr. Cantello, “ leaves 
her nest every day, in search of food, for twenty or thirty 
minutes ; this must be imitated also, as the temporary loss 
of heat has the effect of causing the air at the butt end of 
the egg to diminish in bull;, and the vacuum is filled by a 
fresh supply, drawn in for the nourishment of the germ. 
“ The eggs must be moved three times a day—morning, 
noon, and night,—which prevents the adhesion of any part of 
the fluid to the shell, and also gives the small blood-vessels 
a better opportunity to spread around the surface of the egg. 
This is effected by nature: when the fowl leaves her nest, or 
returns to it, she naturally disturbs the eggs; and also, from 
any change she may make in her position while upon her 
nest; and also, as she pulls the eggs up against her sides 
with her bill; tills has given rise to the supposition that she 
carefully turns her eggs.” 
* To make Barley-Sugar. —Put a pound of the finest white sugar 
into a saucepan with a lip, together with half a pint of water j put it on a 
gentle fire and take off the scum as it rises; let it boil five minutes; 
strain it through a tammy (woollen cloth); return it into the saucepan 
and continue boiling it until the syrup has become thick, and that the 
handle of a spoon being dipped into it, and then plunged into cold water, 
the sugar upon the handle is found to be quite crisp; when this is the 
case the syrup is sufficiently boiled. On a marble slab, or a large china 
dish, well buttered, pour the syrup along in lines of the thickness the 
sticks are required; take hold of the sticks at each end whilst hot and 
twist them. The lemon flavour is given by dropping into the syrup ten 
drops of oil of lemon just before pouring the syrup upon the slab. 
Neither the oil of lemons nor the straining through the tammy are re¬ 
quired in making barley-sugar for bees. 
Act of Hatching. —The following is curious, aud the 
result of observation:— 
“ Many persons have positively insisted, aud some have 
gone so far as to say they have seen it, that the parent fowl 
breaks the egg at the proper time for the chicken to hatch. 
On the contrary, nature has provided the chicken with an 
apparatus perfectly adapted to procure its own exit; and if 
the smallest particle of the shell is broken, even after the 
chicken has forced open a hole, it will, in most instances, 
bleed to death—the whole interior surface of the egg being 
covered with a beautiful tissue of veins and arteries, which 
have served to convey nourishment to the little animal in an 
imperfect state. When the chicken has broken through the 
shell, it lays about twelve hours to gain strength from the 
atmospheric air, and to enable tlie lungs to become perfect 
in the functions consequent on breathing; the chicken grows 
in size and development from inhaling the atmosphere, and 
swells out from the interior; this forces the remains of the 
egg into its body by the naval, as also the intestines (which 
in a chicken are formed outside the body), and iu like manner 
the blood filling the tissue of veins around the inner surface 
of the shell, is forced into the system, when the interior 
surface of the shell becoming thus in a manner free, the 
little animal makes another movement, as the head is bent 
down under the right wing, with the bill on the back, and the 
legs doubled up in front, gives a slight rotatory movement, 
and turns the body gradually round in the shell. At each 
movement, the instrument supplied by nature for the pur¬ 
pose * is forced to make a fresh opening. Thus, by a series 
of thrusts, the shell is cut about three quarters of the dis¬ 
tance around, when the remainder breaks; the end of the 
shell then opens like the lid of a box, and the chicken finally 
pushes his way out, when, in a very few hours, he is able to 
stand or run alone,—the remains of the yolk and white of 
the egg, not used in his construction within the egg, serving 
for nourishment to the system until he learns to eat.” 
Carriage of Eggs .— “ Much has been said relative to the 
injurious effects of tlie transport of eggs for incubation, aud 
it has even been asserted that carnage by water is in¬ 
jurious. I do not say that an egg purposely shaken with 
violence will produce a chicken. This I have never tried; 
but I can say that they will hatch very well after an ordinary 
carriage of thirty or forty miles over country roads, provided 
they have been well packed. I have hatched many fine 
chickens from eggs which had travelled by rail one hundred 
miles, and by carrier sixty, having been bought previously in 
the market of a country town. 
“ Eggs are generally packed in straw, bran, or chaff; there 
is, however, a packing much superior to these, which I have 
adopted with success, viz., oats. This is, of all others, the 
most economical packing for eggs ; for whilst the packer 
supplies the other at his own cost, he reaps several advan¬ 
tages from using oats. He charges the current price for his 
oats ; he will have no broken eggs (a great item); the eggs 
are packed in smaller compass, and unpacked with a better 
appearance; they require much less time to pack, as the oats 
are thrown on in alternate layers with the eggs, fill up all in¬ 
terstices, and the two together form almost a solid body.” 
We have some other passages marked for extraction, but 
have selected enough to induce those who desire more infor¬ 
mation to purchase the work. To those who do purchase it, 
we are bound to add a caution against being led away by Mr. 
Cantello’s calculation of profits. He presumes upon eighteen 
hatchings annually, whilst practical poultry-keepers say that 
it is useless to hatch in the winter months, for no care will 
enable the poultry attendant to rear the chickens. Again, 
Mr. Cantello s calculation of profit is founded upon rearing 
more than 81 chickens out of every 100 hatched, whereas we 
have seen an admission from him that (iO per cent is a safer 
ratio on which to calculate. Lastly, we have heard, but 
cannot speak from our own knowledge, of parties adopting 
his system aud then abandoning it as unprofitable. 
* A small sharp pyramid on the tip of the bill. 
