1050 



PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part lH. 



mixture, and it prevents them from pecking the mortar from the roofs of their houses, 

 which they are otherwise very apt to do. 



6772. Cleanliness is one of the first and most important considerations : the want of 

 it in a dove-cote will soon render the place a nuisance not to be approached, and the 

 birds, both young and old, will be so covered with vermin, and besmeared with their own 

 excrement, that they can enjoy no health or comfort, and mortality is often so induced. 

 Mowbray's were cleaned daily, thoroughly once a week, a tub standing at hand for the 

 reception of the dung, the floor covered with sifted gravel, often renewed. 



6773. Pigeon-houses are of three kinds, small boarded cases fixed on posts, trees, or 

 against the ends of houses : lofts fitted up with holes or nests ; and detached buildings. 

 The first are generally too small to contain a sufficient brood, and are also too subject 

 to variations of temperature ; and the last, on the other hand, are now-a-days too large, 

 and therefore the most suitable for the farmer is a loft or tower rising from a building in 

 which no noisy operation iscarried on. The lofts of any of the farm-buildings at a distance 

 from the threshing-machine are suitable, or a loft or tower over any detached building 

 will answer well ; but the best situation of all is a tower raised from the range of poul- 

 try-buildings, where there is such a range, as the pigeons can thus be more conve- 

 viently treated, and will feed very readily with domestic poultry. For a tower of this 

 sort, the round form should be preferred to the square; because the rats cannot so easily 

 come at them in the former as in the latter. It is also much more commodious ; as, by 

 means of a ladder turning round upon an axis, it is possible to visit all the nests in the 

 house, without the least difficulty ; which cannot be so easily done in a house of the 

 square form. And in order to hinder rats from climbing up the outside of it, the wall 

 should be covered with tin-plates to a certain height, as about a foot and a half; which 

 should project out three or four inches at the top, to prevent their getting up more ef- 

 fectually. A common mode in France is to raise a boarded room on a strong post 

 powerfully braced (Jig. 729.), the interior sides of which are lined with boxes for the 

 birds (a), and the exterior east and west sides with balco- 

 nies, or sills for them to alight on and enter to their 

 boxes {b). The noi th and south sides are lined with 

 boxes inside, but without openings, as being too cold on 

 the one front, and too warm on the other. 



6774. The interior of the pigeon-house must be lined 

 with nests or holes, subdivided either by stone, as in the 

 ancient mural pigeon-houses ; l>y boards ; or each nest i 

 composed of a vase or vessel of earthenware fixed on its 

 side. Horizontal shelves (^fig- 730.), divided vertically at 

 three feet distance, are generally esteemed preferable to 



730 every other mode ; the width of the shelf 



may be twenty inches, the height between 



shelf and shelf eighteen inches ; and a slip of 



board three or four inches high is carried 



along the front of the partitions to keep in 



the nests. Sometimes, also, a partition of 



similar height is fixed in the middle of each 



three-feet division, which thus divides it into 



two nests. This, Mowbray and Girton con- 

 cur in recommending as likely to prevent the 



young from running to the hen when sitting 



over fresh eggs, and perhaps occasioning her 



to cool and addle them ; for when the young 

 arte about a fortnight or three weeks old, a good hen will leave them to the care of the 

 cock, and lay again. Some prefer breeding-holes with no board in front, for the 

 greater convenience of cleaning the nests ; but as the squabs are apt to fall out by this 

 practice, a good way would be to contrive the board in front to slip up and down in a 

 groove, by which each nest might be cleaned at pleasure. As tame pigeons seldom take 

 the trouble of making a nest, it is better to give them one of hay, to prevent the eggs 

 from rolling. There are also straw buckets made in the form of nests, and also nests or 

 pans of earthenware. Where pans are used, it is common to place a brick between 

 them (two being placed in a breeding hole), for the cock and hen to alight on, but on 

 the whole straw nests are best. The pigeon-house has two entrances, one a common 

 sized door for man, either on the ground level, or to be ascended to by a ladder, as used 

 formerly to be the case ; and the other on a rising above the roof, and consisting of small 

 holes three or four by twelve or fourteen inches for the entrance of the pigeons. A 

 series of ranges of these are generally placed over each other, in a boarded front looking 

 to the south, with a shelf to each range, and surrounded by a row of iron spikes to pro- 



