National Standard Squab Book. 71 
delivery of our pigeons to customers. Our responsibility does not end 
when we have given them to the expressman. Our guarantee follows them 
as long as they are in the hands of the express company. We will put 
them into your hands. safe and sound. 
Once in a while you will read of live stock and breeding associations 
getting together and complaining about the “exorbitant rates” charged 
by the express companies. ‘The trouble is not with the rates of the ex- 
press companies, but lies wholly in the ignorance of the breeders who 
meet to complain. ‘They simply do not know how to ship and how to talk 
to the express agents. 
We never read the above advice as to shipping live stock in any ‘book 
or paper. It is the product of our own experience and the information 
cost us at least $100 in excess charges before we learned how to get the 
low rate. It is worth dollars to our customers, and that is why we have 
given it here in detail. 
Killed squabs go to market at the rate charged for ordinary merchandise, 
no matter what the distance. Breeders having special customers who 
wish the squabs plucked should pack them in a clean white wood box 
(with ice in the summer) and nail the box up tight. Such shipments go 
through in splendid condition and if the breeder has a choice article, 
with his trade mark stamped on the box, he gets the fancy price. Squabs 
which reach the Boston market from jobbers in Philadelphia and New 
York are plucked and packed with ice in barrels. Breeders around Bos- 
ton who reach the Boston market with undressed squabs send them in 
wicker hampers or baskets on the morning of the day after they are 
killed. fe 
In the graduated charge books of all the inter-state express companies 
dating from June. 1902, will be found a special classification indexed 
under P as “Pigeons.” Tell your agent to look it up in his book if you 
think he overcharges you. There it will be found that live pigeons for 
breeding are carried for the single, or merchandise rate for all distances 
for which the rate per one hundred pounds is $2 or more. For all dis- 
tances for which the rate per one hundred pounds is less than $2, the 
charge is now i 1/2 times the merchandise rate, and not double it. This 
ruling practically puts pigeons on the same easy scale of eharges as 
applied to common merchandise. No agent anywhere has a right to make 
any extra charges whatever on a pigeon shipment. 
There is no duty on our pigeons to Canada, Cuba or Porto Rico. 
