STORIES OF SUCCESS WITH PLYMOUTH ROCK HOMERS 



able to think for himself. However, I do not 

 inbreed pigeons, and 1 do not think you have 

 authority for making the sweeping statement 

 that in a wild state the pigeons almost in- 

 variably mate in pairs as they were hatched. 

 I will prove that to you right now by asking 

 you. Have you not seen male pigeons, both in 

 a wild state and domesticated, fighting for the 

 possession of a female ? Certainly, we all 

 have; it is an e very-day occurrence among 

 pigeons, depending on a hundred different 

 notions which may form in the minds of the 

 pigeons. This domination of the strongest 

 and handsomest over the weakest and ugliest 

 is the law of life among human beings as well 

 as animals. This survival of the fittest would 

 not be true if it was the law and the rule and 

 the custom, call it what you will, for nest- 

 mates to mate for the reason of propinquity 

 alone. Now, as a matter of fact I know that 

 there are a great many Homer fanciers in this 

 country, mostly Englishmen, who have bred 

 pigeons all their lives, who win prizes with 

 Homers as well as other kinds of pigeons, 

 which are the product of inbreeding. There 

 are a dozen fanciers within fifty miles of my 

 plant in Massachusetts who come to my place 

 regularly and there pick out young birds which 

 we band with seamless bands for them and 

 sell them when weaned, and I know for a fact 

 because some have told me so, that they take 

 these birds a nd inbreed them. However, 

 as a matter of business, it would not do for me 

 or for anybody selling pigeons in the open 

 market to inbreed them, because there is a 

 sort of horror, a repugnance, among people 

 generally, especiallv women, against that sort 

 of thing. Nearly half my trade is among 

 women, and I think that as a rule they master 

 pigeons better than men, and I don't think I 

 would sell to many women if I advocated 

 and practised inbreeding. If you are a 

 follower of poultry, you will read advice from 

 many theorists and impractical men, who 

 work eight hours a day at something else, but 

 who will sit at a desk in their evening hours 

 and with a pen direct breeding operations for 

 anybody offhand, and one of the stock re- 

 marks of these folks, unable to follow their own 

 ideas in breeding successfully is, when some 

 one writes them, that his or her pigeons are not 

 raising young satisfactorily: "Your pigeons 

 are probably inbred, and arc worthless, being 

 weak." It is a foolish and senseless remark, 

 because it is a guess, and nothing more. In 

 my Manual I decry inbreeding and, as I say, 

 do not practise it, because I do not think it is 

 nature's way. An animal wants a handsome 

 and attractive, or otherwise satisfactory mate, 

 and is willing to fight for it — this is nature's 

 way. While I am on this subject, I will tell 

 why people fail, as some do, with pigeons. 

 There are generally men and women who have 

 failed with poultry, and with everything. It 

 is their fault, not the fault of the pigeons. If 

 they start with pigeons, strong and rugged 



birds, it is up to them to get results. I have 

 seen people start with pigeons who absolutely 

 could not get an egg or a squab to amount 

 to anything for months, and then sell out to 

 somebody of sense and gumption who inside 

 of a month would be doing so well with the 

 birds that he would buy more. Is this sur- 

 prising? Not if you have had much expe- 

 rience with people and their habits. There is 

 a large percentage of folks who cannot man- 

 age their own eating and drinking right; their 

 bowels are always out of order; they are dos- 

 ing with patent medicines; they seldom or 

 never bathe. Others who look after them- 

 selves perhaps better cannot do the simplest 

 things of life successfully; cannot write their 

 names legibly; cannot compose a letter and 

 address the envelope correctly; cannot man- 

 age their children so as to hold their respect; 

 cannot keep friends with their neighbors; can- 

 not earn money, or cannot save it; and so on. 

 Yet many of these people (and there are 

 hundreds of them who turn to a new thing like 

 squabs for the long-sought touchstone) will 

 take hold of animal breeding, requiring at the 

 outset, and all the time, the sterling qualities 

 of patience and common sense, not to speak 

 of some degree of skill which must be acquired, 

 and then wonder why they fail. From squabs 

 they go to bees, or vice versa, or to ginseng 

 or pecan nuts, or truck gardening, or poultry, 

 but never back again to something at which 

 they have failed. The Creator put these 

 things into the world, and the devil has put 

 many temptations along too, to winnow out 

 people, to separate by their own acts the wise 

 from the foolish, the skilful from the unskilful, 

 the good from the bad, etc. The acquisition 

 of a flock of pigeons, or anything else, will not 

 turn a poor tool into a good one. 



SPEAKS OF US IN HIGHEST TERMS. 



Enclosed find draft on New York in $10.25, 

 for which please ship me four hundred pounds 

 mixed pigeon grain. My Homers are doing 

 nicely. I have only lost one more bird, two in 

 all. Quite a number are laying, a few setting. 

 It affords me pleasure to speak in the highest 

 terras of the Plymouth Rock Squab Company. 

 —W.B.W., Arkansas. 



ONE BIRD SICK, THE ONLY ONE IN A 

 YEAR AND A HALF OF BREEDING. You 



no doubt remember me as one who purchased 

 two lots of Homers from you a year ago last 

 January. I am now prepared to sell squabs 

 as my enclosed card will show you. I send 

 you this card to show you that I have not been 

 asleep in the business, and that I have given 

 constant care to the flock ever since the first 

 day I asked you, What is a squab? Ha, ha. 

 It makes me laugh to think that 1 was so 

 green. I now have one good customei here 

 who gives me $3 a dozen for them, but he says 

 they are not selling very fast this time of 

 year (May). Others said, when I presented 



LETTERS FROM CUSTOMERS RECEIVED BY PLYMOUTH ROCK SQUAB COMPANY 



158 



