. Artificial incubation and incubators ... siness of the mothers, are entirelyavoided. How many have to bewail chicks trampled to death;while often sickness, terminating fatally, is but the result of some INCREASED SIZE. 59 internal injury, of which the hen has been the author. Seventh,increased size. Notes carefully taken of weights and ages duringfour seasons show that, during 1870 and 1871, by the naturalsystem our chicks only attained the weight in twelve weeks which,during 1872 and 1873, under the artificial system, they reached inten, though this partially is due, no doubt, to selection.
. Artificial incubation and incubators ... siness of the mothers, are entirelyavoided. How many have to bewail chicks trampled to death;while often sickness, terminating fatally, is but the result of some INCREASED SIZE. 59 internal injury, of which the hen has been the author. Seventh,increased size. Notes carefully taken of weights and ages duringfour seasons show that, during 1870 and 1871, by the naturalsystem our chicks only attained the weight in twelve weeks which,during 1872 and 1873, under the artificial system, they reached inten, though this partially is due, no doubt, to selection. Eighth,better feathering and stronger health, arising, probably, fromnestling as often as desired. The second is proved by our loss ofone chicken during 1872, and of not even one during 1873. Ninth,increased cleanliness of chicks, whose beautiful down retains itsutmost purity until it is replaced by feathers. Tenth, the pos-sibility of raising broods very early in the year, since they cannestle until eight or ten weeks old, if they CHAPTER The earliest record we have of hatching by artificial means ismentioned by Herodotus, about 450 years B. C., in his referenceto the egg ovens of Egypt. They are also mentioned by subsequent historians, but it is notuntil A. D. 1494, nearly two thousand years after, that we findanything like an intelligent description of how they were con-structed. In that year Alphonse II., King of Naples, establishedan Egyptian Incubator, and during the same year the Duke ofFlorence imported an Egyptian who was skilled in the art, andconstructed an incubator after the Egyptian pattern. Neither ofthem were successful, however, owing to the difference in climatebetween the two countries. These EGYPTIAN EGG OVENS, according to the early descriptions, were built of mud, or adobe;in later years they <made them of brick, which were, in fact, sun-dried mud. They are described as consisting of two parallel rowsof small ovens, and cells for f
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectincubat, bookyear1883
