THE UNIT HOUSE 41 



Build the first unit so that you can extend it either to the 

 east or west (as your land lies) to increase your accommoda- 

 tions. Your squab house will always remain sixteen feet 

 from north to south, but it may be either twelve feet from 

 east to west, for one unit, or twenty -four feet for two units, 

 or thirty-six feet for three units, and so on. Of course you 

 can build one long house sixteen feet wide and in length any 

 multiple of twelve, and keep all the birds you wish in it, but 

 we do not advise such an arrangement. You can keep track 

 of your pairs better if you split a big flock up into unit flocks. 



Fanciers breeding flying Homers from our birds, or squab- 

 raisers who wish to keep track of every pair of birds, can 

 provide a card index (the cards being perfectly blank and 

 three by five inches in size), number the cards to corre- 

 spond with the nest boxes, and on these cards keep a record 

 of what the birds in the nest boxes do. These cards, which 

 are blank except for the numbers they bear, can be kept in a 

 tray such as the manufacturers of card indexes advertise in the 

 back pages of the magazines and you can pick out any card 

 you wish, or turn to it, at once: " It is much better than 

 keeping a record in a book, for you cannot tear out the leaves 

 of a book, as you can throw away a card, nor can you shift one 

 page from one location to another, as you can a card in a tray. 



The floor of the squab house rests on cedar posts and is 

 two feet from the ground. The floor is built of two thick- 

 nesses of board, with building paper between. The walls of 

 the squab house are built of boards which are covered with 

 building paper and shingled. The roof is shingled. You 

 can use clapboards on the sides, or common boards. 



The cost of such a squab house, complete with flying pen 

 and all inside fittings, built in the best possible manner, will 

 be from three dollars to five dollars a running foot. That is 

 to say, a unit plant twelve feet long will cost from thirty-six 

 to sixty dollars. A plant consisting of three units, thirty-six 

 feet long, will cost from one hundred and eight to one hun- 

 dred and fifty dollars. We publish and sell for ten cents 

 working drawings showing just how to build a unit in 

 every detail. On the same sheet are working drawings 

 for building a simple squab house (without passageway) to 

 cost from fifteen to twenty-five dollars. Also on the same 

 sheet we give data showing how one of our friends built a 



