APPENDIX F 
(Copyright, 1909, by Elmer C_ Rice.) 
Letters from customers which we print on the following pages are a few 
of those received lately. From a pile of manuscript some three feet high 
we have selected enough letters to make a proper setting for the pictures. 
Many customers have sent in letters which ought to be printed for the news 
in them, but in this book, now grown to quite bulky proportions, we have 
run up against the limit of space. 
A MONTHLY SQUAB MAGAZINE. 
The best outlet for suggestions, experiences, market reports from all over 
the country, etc., constantly being sent in, would be a monthly squab maga- 
zine, printed and illustrated in the best style, capably edited and written by 
experienced and industrious men and women who have ability as well as 
good intentions, who know what they are doing, and who know squabs. 
Such a magazine, creditably gotten up, with money behind it, and money com- 
ing in from subscribers really pleased because they would be getting full value, 
would be a power in the squab industry. Properly managed, it would not only 
be a clearing house for ideas and a monthly entertainment, but of assistance 
in actually making market prices for squabs, bettering them. Breeders of 
squabs should be organized for better prices and other ends. A first-class 
monthly squab magazine would be cheap at a subscription price of $1 a year, 
issued on time each month, and containing nothing but original matter at 
first-hand (no politics or cheap wrangling, but plain and thorough business 
all the time.) There is a demand for such a national squab magazine and 
thousands of breeders would subscribe for it. 
MORE ABOUT HOW TO TELL SEX. 
A good proportion of our letters, month after month and year after year, 
inquire how to tell the sex of pigeons. People ask us this question before 
they have read this Manual and after they have read the Manual. We 
should like to write this down to the remotest detail so that even a child 
could tell the sex of a pigeon by looking at it, but this is impossible. There 
is no language which can convey the secret of telling absolutely the sex of 
pigeons. You can tell only by watching them and by experience gained 
by this watching. You become more expert in determining the sex as you go 
along. There are no marks on either male or female by which you can 
distinguish them at any age. Some large male pigeons act the same as 
roosters do and can be told almost at a glance. On the other hand, some 
female pigeons are large and coarse, like a male bird, and the secret of their 
sex is disclosed only by their actions in conjunction with birds of the opposite 
sex. 
The birds we ship are banded cocks on right leg and hens on left leg. You 
must watch these birds and see how they act. By the location of the band 
you will know the sex and by their actions you will learn to connect what 
you see with the specified sex. Sometimes customers will write to us and 
state that they have raised birds and are puzzled about the sex of them. 
In that case you must watch their actions or you can turn such birds in with 
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