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APPENDIX G 



MALE AND FEAIALE PIGEON BILLING, OR KISSING. 



HOW I LEARNED TRUE CALIFORNIA 

 PRICES, by Stefan Schwarz. In the leading 

 San Francisco daily papers, squabs are quoted 

 at $2 and $.'i a dozen at present (May 29, 

 1911). Everybody knows that squabs are 

 numerous at this time of year, and that com- 

 petition is active. Circumstances did not 

 encourage me. Anyway I did not expect a 

 very ready demand, or good prices either, 

 I am breeding a flock of several hundred pairs 

 of Plymouth Rock Extra Homers. 



I asked my grain man for the address of a 

 commission house, and he sent me to a big 

 one of first-class reputation. Who can describe 

 my great surprise as one of the members of 

 the firm told me: "I will take all the squabs 

 that you will ship to me and I am ready to make 

 a contract with you for one thousand dozen 

 squabs a year, for which I will pay you $3.50 

 for Homer squabs weighing ten to twelve 

 pounds, and $4.50 for Carneaux squabs weigh- 

 ing fourteen to sixteen pounds." 



It is a puzzle to me how my fellow squab 

 raisers in California can afford to go so much 

 below these quotations just mentioned, unless 

 they ship squabs which weigh considerably 

 less, or are fooled by the newspaper quotations, 

 as I nearly was. 



Squab buyers must buy squabs. Squab 

 breeders alone can furnish squabs. It is the 

 business of the seller and not the buyer to 

 make the price. 



HOW I LEARNED TO GET 

 GOOD PRICES, by A. J. 

 McCauley. I sold all of the 

 Plymouth Rock Extra Homer 

 squabs I raised in eleven months 

 to a marketman in St. Louis, 

 Mo., for prices ranging from 

 $3.25 to S4.80 a dozen. I 

 started in to ship to the market 

 people in December, 1909, and 

 until January 21 , 19 10, _ received 

 $3.60 a dozen; from then until 

 February 25 I succeeded in get- 

 ting $4.20 a dozen. I again 

 wrote them to advance the 

 price as I had been offered 

 more elsewhere. The price was 

 then advanced to $4.80 a dozen. 

 This price lasted until April 10, 

 when they tumbled to $4.50 a 

 dozen, then in the same month 

 they cut them to $4. In May 

 they cut them to $3.60. In 

 June they cut them to $3.50. 

 From July until November, 

 when I quit shipping to them, 

 I was getting only $3.25. At 

 this time I wrote them to know 

 if it wasn't about time for 

 squabs to start to advance in 

 price. The answer I got was 

 quite an eye opener for me, for 

 they said that they had been 

 putting squabs In cold storage 

 all summer and that they had 

 quite a lot of birds on hand that 

 they had bought reasonable and consequently 

 could not pay any more for them just at that 

 time. I at once got busy with other buyers 

 in Chicago where I received $4 for eight-pound 

 squabs and $4.25 for nine-pound birds. At 

 present I am shipping my birds alive for $4 

 a dozen to a place near Chicago. I am putting 

 forth every effort to be able to gather a lot of 

 squabs through the months of February and 

 March, when I hope to get $4.80 or $5 a dozen; 

 then I expect to be able to ship squabs by the 

 barrel next summer and will either ship East 

 or store them until the prices advance. 



Some people are dead set against whole com 

 because it is so big, and claim it chokes the 

 squabs, but I notice when I feed cracked com 

 and whole corn together, they always pick out 

 the whole com. The females seem to like it 

 when they are on eggs especially. One reason 

 I feed whole corn is because the cracked com 

 gets sour in the least dampness, and soon I see 

 sick birds. A breeder about two miles from 

 my place buys squabs and he told me the other 

 day that he got $4.50 per dozen himself. I 

 went down a few weeks after and he offered 

 to buy fairly good squabs at thirty cents each, 

 or $3.60 per dozen, netting him a profit of 

 ninety cents on every dozen. I take the maga- 

 zine and it certainly is a beauty. — P. E. Foster, 

 Massachusetts. 



All squabs are good, but some are better. 



