McBEE'S INCUBATOR.

King Country Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 49, 27 September 1907, Page 3

McBEE'S INCUBATOR.

[By " Kahikatea."] (Continued from last week.) " But," said Jack, "to resume my story about the incubator." Whenever an idea enters his thoughts he is not content until he puts it to the test, and as he is of an imaginative turn of mind, »he is kept pretty busy. He is a walking memorandum of tests and failures. Still they tell me there is no hesitation about him, and it is a pleasure to see him set to work, eveiy thing seems to be at his finger ends. And if the results of his experiments are not a success he will put them right, by explaining why. Mcßee, when making up the cost of running his household affairs, was struck with the bill for poultry, which he thought rather too heavy. To be always buying ' poultry was ruinous, so he decided, there and then, to raise his own chickens. " You will remember, too," said Jack, " what a fellow he was to make calculations ; he used always to carry a pencil and paper, and deluge 'you with a flood of figures." So in this case he made a series of profound calculation as to the probable cost of raising, say, three hundred and sixty - five chickens per annum ; for though he didn't intend having poultry for dinner every day, still, for some reason or other, he thought to make poultry farming pay it was necessary to hatch out and rear three hundred and sixty-five chicks. As I have said, lie had bought an old incubator, but the egg season was about over when he wanted to start. After searching around high and low for eggs, the only ones he could procure were some that had been down in strong brine pickle for about six weeks. A friend had these and to him Mcßee applied. His friend finding out what he wanted them for told him they would be useless for the purpose. That was enough to set Mcßee off. Oppose him in any way, and he is happy. He pooh poohed the idea, and declared it all bosh. Eggs were eggs if they had been in pickle for six years, and that it wouldn't make the slightest difference to the Incubator. Mcßee filled the old machine as full as it could hold, lighted up the lamp or lamps, damped the eggs with a mop, and kept things going, and watched the machine for five weeks. Then he caught a severe cold, which confined him to his bed for a fortnight. Long before that time expired the lamps were allowed to go out, and the Incubator cleaned out by his wife, who is really a most patient and pleasant - minded woman. To this day, however, he declares had he not been taken ill the hatching would have been a success, and blames his man for not attending to things more closely, for, as he says, though the usual three weeks had expired, and two more were added, there is no special time for hatching out eggs, either in an Incubator or under a hen.

" Now one would think," Jack, " that experience would damp his ardour, but no, it had the opposite result. He prides himself generally on his cuteness. He paid a visit to a country friend, and in this case did display an amount of cunning that ought to procure him a crown _of glory in the world to come. I think before we finish we had better call the steward." The steward came with more " aids to imagination " and Jack continued. " He visited a friend, as I said, and when walking around he took special care to admire his poultry, and wished he had some like them. The result was that before leaving, his friend presented him with the oldest Brahama hen he had, one he had kept for years for hatching out chicks. As the tears of regret coursed their way down his cheeks, he assured McBee that it was the most useful hen he had ever possessed. It was only love and friendship that induced him to part with the bird. He said she was one of those hens that laid all through the winter, when others were in a state of collapse and trying to keep body and soul together against winter's cold storms and blasts. This particular hen would, strut about as only an old Brahama hen can strut and all the time thinking how many more eggs she could lay before the spring set in. "And as for feed, bless your soul, she don't eat more than a bantam."

Now here was the very fowl for i Mcßee. The hen that could lay with such regularity, and only consume as much as a bantam, was the very hen he was looking for, and would be sure to be the mother of pullets similar to herself in all respects. He returned home rejoicing at his valuable acquisition, and also at the way he had worked his country friend. The first thing he did when he reached home was to to buy a bushel of corn, a peck of oyster shells, and a hand-power bone mill, by which, with a large expenditure of energy, causing streams of perspiration to course down his cheeks, he reduced the shells to a mixture of grit and powder. He then called the hen to him and in the solitude of his back yard proceeded right away to feed her —with this result. Her Bantam's appetite put away no less than nine pounds of corn, and then completed her meal by topping off with half the oyster shells'. Mcßee was not in the least discouraged ; he was determined to make poultry raising a success, and there was no use having a hen without an appetite. The above meal and a few more which Mcßee gave the egg depositor, led to another series of calculations as to how much it would take, in corn and shells, to feed, say, three hundred and sixtyfive chickens, if one full-grown hen could eat nine pounds of corn and half a peck of oyster shells at one meal. Then it must necessarily follow that eighteen pounds of corn and one bushel of ground oyster shells must be her daily ration. But as he would have chickens in all stages of development, he took th.g average to be when the qhjekens were half-grown, as, he 'considered two half-grown chickens equal to an adult. He ar-

rived at the astonishing conclusion that to find 365 chickens it would take a daily ration of -085 pounds of corn and 182% bushels of oyster shells. On the strength of this Mcßee hurried off to all the oyster stalls and bespoke all the oyster shells they might have on hand for the remainder of the season. He also applied to all the corn merchants and obtained quotations of current prices, and they say, but I don't know with what truth, that he bought sufficient corn to create a boom in that article. In the meantime he had rigged up a box wherein the old hen could lay her eggs with comfort to herself and profit to him. She made herself quite comfortable for she was always on the nest, but no matter how often Mcßee disturbed her he saw no results beyond the old china egg he had given her to encourage her to make a start. The season was wearing on and Mcßee saw plainly that unless something was done to hurry the old dame up about her business he would have no poultry for the coming year. Stored away in the folds of his wonderful memory he came across a receipt that was warranted to make hens lay with the same speed and regularity that a machine turns out boot pegs. Jack said, as near as I can remember, it was composed of equal parts of quicklime, sulphur, carbolic acid, cayenne' pepper and rock salt. He mixed about a' quart measure of the above, and the following morning he sallied out and gave her as much of it as she could eat. Being hungry she partook rather freely of the mixture, and a few moments afterwards Mcßee saw her open her mouth, as though she were afflicted with the gapes, and before he could apply any remedies she expired in fearful agonies. This was a catastrophe that he had never even thought of. All his time, trouble and expense gone for naught! It was most vexing, especially when, making a post-mortem examination of the dear old hen's body, he saw such signs of fertility within the precints of her old Brahamainial carcase, that had she only made a start, there were eggs enough to keep her going night and day for the next twenty years. Just as Jack concluded the engines slowed down, and a few moments later the anchor dropped, taking the cable out with a rattle. Presently the steamer swung around, head to the wind, and the tender came alongside, and with a hearty shake of the hand Jack and I parted, _ probably never to see each other again.