CHAPTER Ix. 
THE MARKETS. 
Squabs with the Feathers on Taken by the Boston and Some 
Other City Markets—The New York Market Wants Them 
Plucked and Pays the Highest Price of Any Northern City 
—Interpretation of Quotations of Squabs as Seen in the News- 
erg aes leshed Squabs are Wanted, Not Dark- 
Fleshed. 
The Boston market, and the markets in some other cities, 
will take squabs with feathers on. It is only necessary for 
you to tweak the necks of the squabs and send them to the 
train, after they have cooled over night. Some shippers do 
not take the trouble to box the killed squabs, but tie their 
legs together with string and send them along to market. 
In the baggage cars of the trains running into Boston you will 
sometimes see strings of squabs going in to the dealers in this 
way. 
The New York market demands squabs plucked. The 
squab breeders who have large plants and who ship to the 
New York market employ pluckers and pay them by the 
piece. A skillful plucker will strip feathers from squabs at 
the rate of ten to twenty squabs an hour. The proper time to 
pluck the killed squab is immediately after killing. When 
picked clean, throw the squab into cold water and leave it 
there over night to plump out and harden the flesh. In the 
summer use ice water. 
The squab puts on more feathers than flesh during the 
last few days of its growth and if you see squabs which are 
only three weeks old, but which are of good size, you may save 
a week on feed by killing the squab at.that age and plucking 
it. When the feathers are off of it, it looks like the four weeks 
squabs which have not matured so rapidly. 
If you are shipping to the New York market, you should 
pack your squabs in a neat white wood box, printed if you 
please. Do not use a pine box for if you do the odor of the 
pine will penetrate the squabs. 
‘The New York market for squabs is the best in the North. 
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