APPENDIX F 247 



you make, offer to buy all the time and then the dealer will disclose to you 

 the true prices. Then you will know what to seU your squabs for. If you 

 find that he is selling squabs at $3 a dozen, he should pay you $2.50 a dozen. 

 If he is selling squabs for $4 a dozen, he should pay you $3 a dozen for them 

 and so on. 



Once more, be on your guard against market quotations. If you see 

 squabs quoted in a newspaper or anywhere else at low prices it does not 

 follow by any means that that price is the true one. Such figures are put 

 in because they are the prices of the commission men or dealers, which they 

 want to pay. 



No successful squab business can be built up if you allow a middleman to 

 run your plant for you. You are simply buying grain and working for him. 

 He has no trouble or expense to amount to anything but he takes the profits 

 and you do all the work. When grain is high you must get more for your 

 squabs than you do at other times. The trouble with many squab raisers 

 we have found is that they have no actual knowledge of what it costs them 

 to raise a dozen squabs. You must arrive at your cost of product absolutely 

 and when you do it is folly to sell squabs for that figure or less. You must 

 put them out at a profit or else go out of the business. Our best customers 

 are those who have sen.se enough to sell to a private trade or to first-class 

 wholesalers, and this must be your goal in every case. If you wish to make 

 the most money, get right after your private trade until you secure it, as 

 this is unlimited. People who are accustomed to eating chicken, as they 

 are in every part of the country, will eat squabs. If they do not, it is your 

 fault. You must tell them what a squab is and show them, and induce 

 them to buy and eat them. If they do not know what a squab is, you must 

 demonstrate. 



HOW TO KILL CATS. 



A kitten brought up in a, squab house will make no trouble. We raise 

 two or three kittens every year at Melrose and gi\'e them the run of the pigeon 

 houses, and such cats are intelligent enough not to try to reach the squabs. 

 Of all the cats we have raised we have had only one which we were obliged 

 to shoot because of squab stealing. 



Cats belonging to the neighbors may cause some trouble in your squab 

 house if you give them a chance to get in. A customer in Ohio has found 

 a way to kill visiting cats. He does not like to have them around the squab 

 house trying to get in so he puts exposed wires on the top of the flying pen 

 and when the cats walk around on the top of the pen, looking for a chance 

 to get at the pigeons inside, he throws a switch in the basement. A strong 

 current of electricity shoots through the wires. The body of the cat makes 

 a short circuit from one wire to the other so the charge of electricity passes 

 through the cat. The result is that the cat tumbles off in double quick time 

 and starts for the tall timber, if alive. He says he has electrocuted two and 

 still has his hand near the switch. 



BREEDING TRUE TO COLOR. 



No colored Homers breed true to color. We mean by this that if you 

 start with the blue-barred Homers, for example, and breed them, you will 

 in time get from these blue-barred birds all the other colors, such as blue- 

 checkers, red-checkers, silvers, etc. All these colors are in the blood and 



