CHAPTER IX. 



THE MARKETS. 



Squabs with the Feathers on Taken by the Boston and Some 

 Other City Markets — The New York Market Wants Them 

 Plucked and Pays the Highest Price of Any Northern City 

 — Interpretation of Quotations of Sqiiabs as Seen in the News- 

 papers — White-Fleshed Squabs are Wanted, Not Dark- 

 Fleshed. 



The Boston market, and the markets in some other cities, 

 will take squabs with feathers on. It is only necessary for 

 you to tweak the necks of the squabs and send them to the 

 train, after they have cooled over night. Some shippers do 

 not take the trouble to box the killed squabs, but tie their 

 legs together with string and send them along to market. 

 In the baggage cars of the trains running into Boston you will 

 sometimes see strings of squabs going in to the dealers in this 

 way. 



The New York market demands squabs plucked. The 

 squab breeders who have large plants and who ship to the 

 New York market employ pluckers and pay them by the 

 piece. A skillful plucker will strip feathers from squabs at 

 the rate of ten to twenty squabs an hour. The proper time to 

 pluck the killed squab is immediately after killing. When 

 picked clean, throw the squab into cold water and leave it 

 there over night to plump out and harden the flesh. In the 

 summer use ice water. 



The squab puts on more feathers than flesh during the 

 last few days of its growth and if you see squabs which are 

 only three weeks old, but which are of good size, you may save 

 a week on feed by killing the squab at that age and plucking 

 it. When the feathers are off of it, it looks like the four weeks 

 squabs which have not matured so rapidly. 



If you are shipping to the New York market, you should 

 pack your squabs in a neat white wood box, printed if you 

 please. Do not use a pine box for if you do the odor of the 

 pine will penetrate the squabs. 



The New York market for squabs is the best in the North. 



