AN EASY START 27 



The nest boxes, when done, should look like the pigeon-holes 

 of a desk, and should be about one foot high, one foot wide 

 and one foot deep. A variation either way of an inch or 

 two will not matter. 



One way to get these pigeon-holes is to build them of nice 

 pine lumber, in the form of boxing one-half or five-eighths 

 of an inch thick. Another way is to use hemlock or spruce 

 boards one inch thick. The third way (which we think is 

 the best for the beginner who wishes to start most cheaply and 

 quickly) is to use egg crates, or orange boxes. These egg 

 crates are two feet long, one foot wide and one foot deep, 

 but they are divided in the middle by a partition, giving two 

 spaces, each of a cubic foot, and this is just what the squab 

 raiser wants. They are procurable almost anywhere in the 

 United States and Canada new for ten or fifteen*' cents each, 

 and if you buy them after the egg shippers are through with 

 them, you can get them for three to five cents apiece. Some 

 grocers will be glad to have you carry them away and will 

 charge you nothing for them. The crates are built of thin, 

 tough wood and usually are neat and solid. Take off the 

 covers and throw the covers away, — you do not need 'them. 

 Then put one egg crate on its side, open top out, place 

 another egg crate on top of that, and so on until you have 

 covered the three walls of your squab house from the floor 

 to the roof. Do not use any nails, they are not necessary : 

 the crates will keep in position by their weight. It is an 

 advantage, also, to have them loose, for when you clean the 

 nests, you can step up on a chair or box, take down the crates, 

 commencing with the top, and clean each one with your feet 

 on the floor. If you build a substantial set of nest boxes of 

 boxing or hemlock lumber, you will have to stand on a chair 

 and strain your arms in order to clean the top nest boxes, 

 so you see there are points in the low-priced arrangement 

 not possessed by the fancy kind. It is on the same principle 

 by which a humble small boy with bent pin and worms and an 

 old pole catches more fish' than the city angler with a twenty- 

 five dollar assortment of hooks, lines and artificial flies. It 

 is the pigeons and the intelligence behind them which do the 

 trick, every time. A fancy pigeon house with fancy trimmings 

 cannot produce any better squabs than the home-made affair,' 

 provided the birds are the same in both cases. 



