CHAPTER III. 



THE UNIT HOUSE. 



Best Possible Construction for a Squab Plant — The Wind- 

 Break Formation of Roof — Dimensions of the Unit — ■ 

 Multiplying the Unit to Increase the Capacity of Your 

 Plant — A Passageway behind the Nest Boxes — Number- 

 ing the Nest Boxes, and the Management of a Card Index to 

 Correspond — Cost of the Unit Construction is from Three 

 Dollars to Five Dollars a Running Foot — Working Drawings 

 — The Nest Bowls. 



If you have no building already standing which you can fix 

 over for pigeons, you may erect a simple rectangular structure 

 and line it with nest boxes as we have described in the last 

 chapter. We will tell you in this chapter how to put up the 

 finest kind of a pigeon structure. It is at the same time the 

 most expensive. It is the best, the most workmanlike. In 

 saying that it is expensive, we do not mean that money is 

 thrown away on its construction, for that is not so. It is a 

 fit habitation for a money-making investment. 



This best method of construction results in what we call the 

 unit house. You can multiply this unit as many times as you 

 please and get as large a house as you wish, or you may add 

 a unit from time to time, just as you add unit bookcases to 

 accommodate the growth of the modem library shelves. 

 You can erect these units separately, or attach one unit to the 

 other so that you have one long building. 



The nest boxes are built of boxing and set in a vertical row 

 at the back of the house, forming a wall between which and 

 the north side of the house is a three-foot passageway. You 

 can buy this boxing at a saw-mill all cut, ten by eleven inches, 

 the dimensions of the nest, and if you get it in this shape you 

 can put the boxes together with as much ease as a child builds 

 a doll's house. You will have no doubts as to the squareness 

 and plumbness of the structure when you have it up. Take 

 long lengths of boxing eleven inches wide for the shelvinpr 

 which should form the top and bottom of the nest boxes, then 

 set the ten-inch by eleven-inch pieces the proper distance 



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