“It is quite true,” Chebron replied. “Amuba and I went to one of the great breeding-farms two or three months ago. There are two sorts--one where they hatch, the other where they fat them. The one we went to embraced both branches, but this is unusual. From the hatching-places collectors go round to all the people who keep fowls for miles round and bring in eggs, and beside these they buy them from others at a greater distance. The eggs are placed on sand laid on the floor of a low chamber, and this is heated by means of flues from a fire underneath. It requires great care to keep the temperature exactly right; but of course men who pass their lives at this work can regulate it exactly, and know by the feel just what is the heat at which the eggs should be kept. “There are eight or ten such chambers in the place we visited, so that every two or three days one or other of them hatches out and is ready for fresh eggs to be put down. The people who send the eggs come in at the proper time and receive each a number of chickens in proportion to the eggs they have sent, one chicken being given for each two eggs. Some hatchers give more, some less; what remain over are payment for their work; so you see they have to be very careful about the hatching. If they can hatch ninety chickens out of every hundred eggs, it pays them very well; but if, owing to the heat being too great or too little, only twenty or thirty out of every hundred are raised, they have to make good the loss. Of course they always put in a great many of the eggs they have themselves bought. They are thus able to give the right number to their customers even if the eggs have not turned out well. “Those that remain after the proper number has been given to the farmers the breeders sell to them or to others, it being no part of their business to bring up the chickens. The fattening business is quite different. At these places there are long rows of little boxes piled up on each other into a wall five feet high. The door of each of these boxes has a hole in it through which the fowl can put its head, with a little sort of shutter that closes down on it. A fowl is placed in each box. Then the attendants go around two together; one carries a basket filled with little balls of meal, the other lifts the shutter, and as the fowl puts its head out catches it by the neck, makes it open its beak, and with his other hand pushes the ball of meal down its throat. They are so skillful that the operation takes scarce a moment; then they go on to the next, and so on down the long rows until they have fed the last of those under their charge. Then they begin again afresh.” “Why do they keep them in the dark?” the fowler asked.