Of the natural method we shall treat first: Hens of medium size of the American class, barred Plymouth Rocks and Wyandottes, are considered the best for sitting. Nine duck eggs are about the right number to place under a hen in early spring weather, but when the season is far advanced as many as thirteen are used. The hens should be provided with large, roomy nests, and slatted fronts that can be removed and replaced easily when the hens are fed and watered. The nesting material should be of hay or straw, and the nest should be slightly concaved; in the bottom place a little finely cut hay. Before the hen is put on the eggs she should be thoroughly dusted with insecticides; the nest also should have a good dusting of the same. Both hen and nest should undergo a thorough dusting several times during the process of hatching as a safeguard against lice. When the ducklings are hatched they should also have their share of the insecticides before they are given to the hen. When a large number of sitting hens are used for hatching, as many as possible should be set at one time, and the ducklings raised in brooders. Hatching with hens may be done on a large scale and the young brooded artificially. As many as five hundred sitting hens are used on some farms for hatching ducks. They are set in small houses or rooms with the nests around the sides in tiers, each nest having its own lattice door. Each day, in the morning, the hens are taken from their nests and fed and watered on the floor of the room. They are taken down in limited numbers, sections, as it were, at a time, and after they have had the food, drink, and a little exercise they are placed back on the nests and another section is fed and watered. ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION. The subject of artificial incubation has engaged the attention of the civilized world for generations past; the method has done wonders for the poultry industry and has opened up the pathways to fortunes that might otherwise never have been made. The science of incubation and brooding has been developed wonderfully in this country during the last quarter of a century, and what seemed almost an impossibility then has indeed become a certainty now. There are many thousands of chicks and ducklings hatched by artificial means each year, and the numbers of good machines now being manufactured in this country at low prices make poultry raising a business that almost anyone with a limited capital may profitably engage in. The mission of an incubator is to supplant the sitting hen, and make it possible to hatch a large number of chicks at a minimum amount of cost and labor. That this can be done is proved each day.