Fourth:  One of the most successful poultrymen in New York State, who has, without knowing why, hit upon the plan of using a no-moisture type of incubator in a basement which is heated with steam pipes, which maintains temperature at 70 degrees and has a cement floor which is kept covered with water.  Results:  Hatch 59 per cent.

Fifth:  As a fifth in such a series I might mention again the Egyptian machine with the uniform vapor pressure of the climate and the three chicks exchanged for four eggs.

While an official in the United States Department of Agriculture, I gathered data from original records of private plants covering the incubation of several hundred thousand eggs.  Such information was furnished me in confidence as a public official and as a private citizen I have no right to publish that which would mean financial profit or loss to those concerned.

Of records where there were ten thousand or more eggs involved, the lowest I found was 44 per cent. and the highest, that mentioned as the fourth case above, or 59 per cent.  The great majority of these records hung very closely around the 50 per cent. mark.

The following is a fair sample of such data.  It is the record of hatching hen eggs for the first six months of 1908, at one of the largest poultry plants in America: 

Eggs      Chicks      Per Cent. 
Month        Set      Hatched      Hatched

January    4,213       1,585        37 2-3
February   6,275       2,339        33 3-4
March     17,990       6,993        38 1-3
April     18,819      10,265        54 1-2
May       24,458      14,438        59
June      13,100       6,614        55
------      ------        ------
Total     84,855      42,234        50 p.c.

The Future Method of Incubation.

The idea of the mammoth incubator which would hatch eggs by the hundred thousand and a minimum of expense is the dream of the American incubator inventor.  We have long had available such methods of insulation and regulating the supply of heat as would point to the practicability of such a dream.

The past efforts in this direction have fallen down for the following simple reason:  All eggs were placed in a single big room with a view of the man’s entering the room to take care of them.  Contact with cold walls, the opening of doors, the hatching of chicks or introduction of fresh eggs set up air currents, the hot air rising and the cold air settling until great differences in temperature would be found in the room.  No systematic regulation of evaporation was contemplated, as the principles at stake or the means of such regulation were unknown.

The attempt just referred to was made several years ago by one of the most successful of incubator manufacturers and because of his failure other inventors were inclined to steer clear of the proposition.  Meanwhile the need of such an incubator has grown enormously.  At the time that above effort was made no duck ranch existed whose annual production ran over thirty or forty thousand ducklings, whereas we now have several in the one hundred thousand class.