THE UNIT HOUSE 41 
Build the first unit so that you can extend it either to the 
east or west (as your land lies) to increase your accommoda- 
tions. Your squab house will always remain sixteen feet 
from north to south, but it may be either twelve feet from 
east to west, for one unit, or twenty-four feet for two units, 
or thirty-six feet for three units, and so on. Of course you 
can build one long house sixteen feet wide and in length any 
multiple of twelve, and keep all the birds you wish in it, but 
we do not advise such an arrangement. You can keep track 
of your pairs better if you split a big flock up into unit flocks. 
Fanciers breeding flying Homers from our birds, or squab- 
raisers who wish to keep track of every pair of birds, can 
provide a card index (the cards being perfectly blank and 
three by five inches in size), number the cards to corre- 
spond with the nest boxes, and on these cards keep a record 
of what the birds in the nest boxes do. These cards, which 
are blank except for the numbers they bear, can be kept in a 
tray such as the manufacturers of card indexes advertise in the 
back pages of the magazines and you can pick out any card 
you wish, or turn to it, at once. It is much better than 
keeping a record in a book, for you cannot tear out the leaves 
of a book, as you can throw away a card, nor can you shift one 
page from one location to another, as you can a card in a tray. 
The floor of the squab house rests on cedar posts and is 
two feet from the ground. The floor is built of two thick- 
nesses of board, with building paper between. The walls of 
the squab house are built of boards which are covered with 
building paper and shingled. The roof is shingled. You 
can use clapboards on the sides, or common boards. 
The cost of such a squab house, complete with flying pen 
and all inside fittings, built in the best.possible manner, will 
be from three dollars to five dollars a running foot. That is 
to say, a unit plant twelve feet long will cost from thirty-six 
to sixty dollars. A plant consisting of three units, thirty-six 
feet long, will cost from one hundred and eight to one hun- 
dred and fifty dollars. We publish and sell for ten cent 
working drawings showing just how to build a unit in 
every detail, On the same sheet are working drawings 
for building a simple squab house (without passageway) to 
cost from fifteen to twenty-five dollars. Also on the same 
sheet we give data showing how one of our friends built a 
