AN EASY START 27 
The nest boxes, when done, should look like the pigeon-holes 
of a desk, and should be about one foot high, one foot wide 
and one foot deep. A variation either way of an inch or 
two will not matter. 
One way, to get these pigeon-holes is to build them of nice 
pine lumber, in the form of boxing one-half or five-eighths 
of an inch thick. Another way is to use hemlock or spruce 
boards one inch thick. The third way (which we think is 
the best for the beginner who wishes to start most cheaply and 
quickly) is to use egg crates, or orange boxes. These egg 
crates are two feet long, one foot wide and one foot deep, 
but they are divided in the middle by a partition, giving two 
spaces, each of a cubic foot, and this is just what the squab 
raiser wants. They are procurable almost anywhere in the 
United States and Canada new for ten or fifteen cents each, 
and if you buy them after the egg shippers are through with 
them, you can get them for three to five cents apiece. Some 
grocers will be glad to have you carry them away and will 
charge you nothing for them. The crates are built of thin, 
tough wood and usually are neat and solid. Take off the 
covers and throw the covers away,—you do not need them. 
Then put one egg crate on its side, open top out, place 
another egg crate on top of that, and so on until you have 
covered the three walls of your squab house from the floor 
to the roof. Do not use any nails, they are not necessary: - 
the crates will keep in position by their weight. It is an 
advantage, also, to have them loose, for when you clean the 
nests, you can step up on a chair or box, take down the crates, 
commencing with the top, and clean each one with your feet 
on the floor. If you build a substantial set of nest boxes of 
boxing or hemlock lumber, you will have to stand on a chair 
and strain your arms in order to clean the top nest boxes,. 
so you see there are points in the low-priced arrangement: 
not possessed by the faicy kind. It is on the same principle 
by which a humble small boy with bent pin and worms and an 
old pole catches more fish than the city angler with a twenty- 
five dollar assortment of hooks, lines and artificial flies. It 
is the pigeons and the intelligence behind them which do the 
trick, every time. <A fancy pigeon house with fancy trimmings 
cannot produce any better squabs than the home-made affair, 
provided the birds are the same in both cases, 
