National Standard Squab Book. 17 
job, but buy a coil of No. 18 or 20 iron wire and weave this from one 
selvage to another of your wire netting, in and out of the meshes, and 
you have the best joint you can get, and a ship-shape job. 
You can line the three walls of the interior of your squab house with 
nests if you choose. The fourth wall is the one in which the window or 
windows are. Ou this fourth wall you should not have nest boxes, but 
perches. These perches, or roosts, should be tacked up about 15 inches 
apart, so as to give the birds room without interfering with each other. 
The advantage of the V-shaped roost which we advise is that a bird 
perched on it cannot soil the bird underneath. Do not buy the patent 
pigeon roosts which you see advertised, for a pigeon roosting on one will 
soil the pigeon roosting on the one immediately below. 
Please note@particularly at this point the following terms which we use, 
and do not become confused. The nest box is something in which rests 
the nappy or other nest pan in which the nest is built. Do not say or 
think of nests when you mean nest boxes. 
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 cheapest 
and quickest) 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 brand new for ten or fifteen cents each, 
aud 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, and 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 their are points in the low-priced arrangement not pos- 
sessed by the fancy kind. It is on the same principle by which a humble 
small boy with bent pin and worms and au old pole catches more fish than 
the city angler with a $25 assortment of hooks, lines and artificial dies. 
