APPENDIX A 



147 



correct and we will prepay all charges, thus 

 putting on ourselves and not on you the dif- 

 ference, if there is any. 



COMMON PIGEONS AGAIN. We have 

 had some of the old-time raisers of squabs 

 from common pigeons on the ranches in the 

 Middle West write us for more proofs that 

 Homers are ahead of common pigeons. 



In reply we will print here the letter 

 which we received in January, 1903, from a 

 customer as follows: 



" I have for sale between four and five 

 hundred pen-fed common pigeons. Can you 

 use them, and at what price? Should you 

 not be in a position to use them yourself 

 probably you can refer me to some one that 

 is in the market for some fine pen-fed birds. 

 The Homers which I purchased of you some 

 time last summer are doing very nicely, and 

 have to make more room for them is the 

 reason of wanting to dispose of my common 

 birds. Thanking you in advance for favor 

 asked." 



We asked him to tell us if he had not 

 found our Homers more profitable than com- 

 mon pigeons. He replied as follows: 



" In reply to yours will say that your state- 

 ment of the Homers being more profitable 

 than the common birds is true, as the fact 

 has been demonstrated to me in the past 

 five or six months, by my experience of hav- 

 ing the two lots side by side in separate pens. 

 My common birds referred to are fine birds 

 and will sell them f. o, b. at $2.50 per dozen, 

 which, taking the plumpness of the bird in 

 consideration, is very reasonable." 



The above breeder lives in Missouri and 

 we expect to sell a good many of our Hom- 

 ers to him and to those in his State who 

 know of his experience. His letters are at 

 our Boston office, where they may be seen. 

 We will not give his name by mail because 

 he is a customer, but if you think the above 

 letters are made up by us, you write to the 

 Boston office of Dun's or Bradstreet's cum^- 

 mercial agencies and ask for one of their 

 men to be sent to our office to investigate. 



PIGEON MANURE. Our advice in the 

 Manual as to pigeon manure has interested 

 pigeon breeders all over the country, nearly 

 all of whom say that they never have taken 

 pains to save it, and when it got too thick 

 they have scraped it up as best they could 

 and used it for fertilizer. They want to know 

 how we keep it pure, and all about the 

 market, etc. 



The pigeon breeder who does not make 

 provision for the purity of the manure and 

 the steady sale of it is just throwing bank- 

 bills straight into the fire. We have erected 

 two buildings at our place for the manure, 

 and take every precaution to keep the ma- 

 nure free from straw, sawdust, sand, etc. 

 The first building stands at the back of one 

 of the long houses, and about halfway in the 

 whole plant, so that we can reach it easily 



with a wheelbarrow from the houses. There 

 is a slide cut in the north wall of what we 

 call No. 2 squab house, and through this 

 slide the manure is shovelled from the wheel- 

 barrow (standing in the passageway) directly 

 into the manure house, where it stays until 

 there is from $50 to $100 worth of it, when 

 we bag it up and send it off. In the other 

 building, which is larger, we dry and store a 

 larger quantity of the mantire. 



We take the wheelbarrow empty down 

 a passageway and stop at a unit pen, then 

 go into the unit pen with a bushel basket 

 and scrapers. We use a trowel to clean off 

 the nest-bowls, a tree scraper to clean out 

 the nest-boxes and a hoe or a floor chisel 

 (same as is used to clean off snow and ice 

 from city sidewalks), six inches wide at the 

 blade and with a long handle so that it can 

 be easily used while the operator is standing. 

 In scraping the floor, the manure rolls tip 

 with little exertion off the blade of the chisel. 

 It is shovelled into the bushel basket and 

 the basket taken out into the passageway 

 and dumped into the wheelbarrow. It 

 takes one man not over thirty minutes to 

 clean a pen thoroughly and the product of 

 each pen is between two and three bushels, 

 or from $1.20 to SI. 80 for half an hour's 

 work, which is pretty good pay. (We have 

 been getting in the winter of 1 903 sixty 

 cents a bushel from the American Hide and 

 Leather Company of Lowell, Mass.) We 

 ship the manure by freight in bags. We buy 

 these bags when we can from farmers 

 who have large herds of cows and who use 

 considerable grain, and they let the bags go 

 for one and two cents apiece. Second-hand 

 bags in the Boston junkshops cost from four 

 to nine cents apiece. The leather people let 

 the bags pile up and then send them back 

 to us in a bunch. We are particular to save 

 not only the manure in the unit pens, but 

 in the sorting and mating cages and coops. 

 We cover the floors of these cages with bur- 

 lap, not tacking the burlap down, but stretch- 

 ing it over three finish nails tacked at the 

 backs of the cages and two nails tacked at 

 the front of the cages. The mantire cakes 

 and dries on the biu*Iap as it would on the 

 floor. When there is a layer about half an 

 inch thick, all tramped hard, dry and odor- 

 less by the constant hammering of the feet 

 of the birds, we take the bin: lap off the nails 

 and stretch it outside, bottom up, then 

 sprinkle water on the back and the manure 

 drops off in large cakes. The btu-lap then is 

 dried and replaced. This method saves an 

 immense amount of time which otherwise 

 would be consumed in scraping the floors of 

 the cages. We have 108 of these cages at 

 the farm and in our Boston shipping room, 

 each capable of holding from 12 to 20 pairs 

 of birds, and we have burlap carpets on all 

 of them. We use a large amount of burlap 

 not only for this purpose but for small grain 

 bags to go with orders for breeders to dis- 

 tant points, and also for the floors of our 



