242 NATIONAL STANDARD SQUAB BOOK 
thas found them superior to all he has tried. He had no culls among the 
squabs. He has bought largely of our Homers and Carneaux. He had been 
trying on some white Homers our plan for getting 15 pairs from one pair 
of breeders in a year and thought the plan was original with him. This is 
an indication of the careful attention he has given to the details of the 
business. Here is another plan he has been working. An excess of cocks 
seems to be one of the troubles of some in raising young birds and for that 
reason we have requests for single-hens. This customer proceeds on the 
theory that the second egg is said to hatch a hen, so he goes among the nests 
every day and marks all single eggs 1 with a pencil. Then in a couple of 
days when the second egg has come he marks it 2.. Then he puts both the 2 
eggs in one nest and both the 1 eggs in the other nest, making a memorandum 
of the nests and what he has done. When killing day arrives for these nests 
he saves the 2 squab and kills the 1 squab, thereby hoping to raise two hens. 
How this will work out in actual practice he does not know, because he has 
not been doing it long enough. We speak of it here so that our customers 
may try it if-they wish and see how they come out. . 
While in some lofts there may be an excess of male birds caused by con- 
tinuous breeding, it is true that the law of the species is to hatch out equally. 
Otherwise in time, and a comparatively short time too, the entire species 
‘would be extinct. It is absolutely not true that more cocks than hens hatch 
out. The law is that equal numbers hatch out, for this law is necessary to 
.the propagation of the species. 
We have had thousands of customers start with three pairs or six pairs 
‘or twelve pairs and increase from that small beginning to 200 or 300 pairs 
.or more, as our letters from customers show. This is proof that the law 
ee equal sex holds fairly good even in the restricted confines of a small squab 
‘house. 
Squab raising for profit is a new business for the Connecticut customer 
‘above mentioned. He is well up on pigeons as a fancy or rather amusement, 
having kept in Europe at one time or another a few pairs of all breeds. He 
has been getting $4.50 for his squabs all summer in Connecticut, with some 
at $3.50 to his local butcher who retails them at $4.50, unassorted, running 
over eight pounds to the dozen. He says the more he sees of this business 
the more he is convinced that conducted right there isfbig money in it; but 
conducted wrong it is a poor business. This is certainly correct, and is why 
we insist upon our birds being used and managed in the way we tell both 
in this book, and the special instructions which we serid out with every 
shipment. 
SQUAB HOUSES OF TWO AND THREE STORIES. 
-. We have been asked by customers whose ground is limited or who happen 
to have a certain plot, if a two-story house would not be ali right in which 
to raise squabs. Some of these customers have figured out carefully and 
thoroughly that the construction of the two-story house is cheaper than two 
one-story houses. A two-story house certainly may be built. We print 
on the opposite page a photograph of a two and one-half story pigeon house. 
This breeder is a good customer who has bought about $2000 worth of 
Plymouth Rock birds of us during the past four years, and he understands 
what he is about. We asked him to describe his plant. He says this house, 
which is part of his large plant, was not transformed from an old place, but 
