. Artificial incubation and incubators ... ficial hatching has been practiced for centuries, andprobably as long or longer than in Egypt. The stories told of thesystem of incubation there seem hardly credible, and, althoughprobably describing what the narrators saw and heard, are defi-cient in some points that were kept from their knowledge. In Minturns Travels, he says: On our return from thegardens we stopped at an egg-hatching establishment. This wasa large wooden, barn-shaped building on the river bank. The eggsare purchased out of the produce boats that come down the river,and are here ar
. Artificial incubation and incubators ... ficial hatching has been practiced for centuries, andprobably as long or longer than in Egypt. The stories told of thesystem of incubation there seem hardly credible, and, althoughprobably describing what the narrators saw and heard, are defi-cient in some points that were kept from their knowledge. In Minturns Travels, he says: On our return from thegardens we stopped at an egg-hatching establishment. This wasa large wooden, barn-shaped building on the river bank. The eggsare purchased out of the produce boats that come down the river,and are here artificially hatched. The process employed is singu-lar, as using only the natural heat of the egg, and is as follows:Large baskets, each twice the size of an ordinary barrel, andthickly lined with hay to prevent the loss of heat, are filled withthe eggs, and then carefully closed with a closely-fitting cover oftwisted straw. The eggs are now left for three days, after whichthey are removed from the basket and replaced in different order—. Fig. eggs which were before on the surface being now on the low-est tier. At the end of three days more the position of the eggsis again altered, and so on for fifteen days, after which time theeggs are taken out of the basket and placed on a shelf in anotherapartment, and covered with bran. In the course of a day or twothe chicken bursts its shell and makes its way out of the bran,being at once taken charge of by an attendant, who is always onthe watch. The whole secret of the process is in the fact that thethe animal heat of the whole mass of eggs being retained by thebasket, which is formed of materials that do not conduct caloric,is sufficient to support the animal life of any one particular egg,and to foster its development. CHINESE HATCHING BASKETS. Another traveler describes what he saw as follows:The hatching house was built at the end of the cottage, andwas a kind of long shed, with mud walls thickly thatched with CHINESE HA
Size: 2566px × 974px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectincubat, bookyear1883
