National Agricultural Library

Artificial Incubating and Brooding

Reliable Poultry Journal Publishing Company. Quincy, IL

A person who is at all well informed will not dispute the claim that the poultry business in the United States is now an important national industry. As a matter of fact, it is one of the most important, not alone in this, but in every other civilized country, for poultry and eggs are much esteemed the world around as a highly nutritious and palatable human food. These articles are admitted to have only one rival as a natural, complete and nutritious food, namely, milk and milk-products. The poultry industry rests solidly upon the actual value of poultry and eggs as food and will endure, therefore, as long as mankind exists. Its future will be identical, in a true sense, with that of the human race. Increase of population will mean a corresponding increase in the production of these well-nigh indispensable food products.

Just how much the modern incubator and brooder have had to do with the recent rapid development of the poultry industry in this and other countries is hard to estimate, but un-questionably they have been one of the most important factors. Hatching chickens by artificial means is almost as old as history, for it was practiced before the dawn of the Christian Era and has been practiced continuously in Egypt, China and other oriental countries down to the present day For an authentic account of how hen eggs are hatched at present by artificial means in Egypt, see report of the United States consul in the following pages. For many years past, in fact, during at least three or four centuries, chickens have been hatched artificially in European countries, notably in France, England, Belgium and Denmark; but it has remained for Yankee genius to modernize and practically perfect the present popular-sized incubators and brooders and to devise ways and means of hatching and raising chicks in large numbers by their use on the city lot, the village acre and the ordinary farm.