AN EASY START 33 
as shown in the illustration. You cannot have one long 
pole inside the squab house for a pigeon perch. If you had 
such a pole, and your pigeons were perched on it, or some 
of them were, a bully cock would saunter down the line and 
push off all the others. 
In the centre of the squab house you place an empty crate 
or overturned box. The object of this is to break the force 
of the wind made by the pigeons’ wings as they fly in and out 
of the squab house. Otherwise the floor of the squab house 
would be swept clean by the force of the wind. It also forms 
a roosting-place for the birds, and, finally, it is a convenient 
resting-place for the straw, hay, grass or pine needles out of 
which the pigeons build their nests. 
The floor of the squab house should be kept clean. We 
formerly advised that a layer of sand or sawdust half an 
inch thick be kept on the floor of the squab house, to absorb 
the droppings, but we have found a steady and profitable 
demand for pigeon manure, and this manure is worth scraping 
up and carefully saving, for its sale will pay from one-quarter 
to one-third of the grain bill. Use an ice chisel to scrape the 
droppings from the floor, and pack the manure away in barrels 
or bags. Clean the floor about once in three weeks, or oftener, 
depending on the size of your flock. Pigeon manure is in 
active demand all the time by tanneries. We send the 
manure from our pigeons by freight to tanneries in Lowell, 
Lynn, Peabody and Danvers, and are paid for it at the rate 
of sixty cents a bushel. . 
We have a building eighty feet long built especially for the 
drying and storing of the manure. During the years we have 
been in the squab business, we have sold enough pigeon 
manure to pay for nearly all the pigeon buildings on our farm. 
Some pigeon raisers with crude methods know nothing of the 
salue of the manure and lose this by-product. They either 
ruin it by putting sand or sawdust on the floor of the squab 
house, or else waste it on their gardens. The pure manure 
is too valuable for home use. To fertilize our flower and 
vegetable gardens, and hay field, we scrape up from the 
flying pens, outdoors, the gravel which has become saturated 
with manure. It is surprising what an increase in vegetation 
this manure-soaked gravel will cause. Fresh gravel is put 
down in the flying pens. 
