246 NATIONAL STANDARD SQUAB BOOK 
than you can count. One customer got 48 at the first trial, and about ten 
the next time. This took them all and he was no longer troubled by mice. 
HOW TO MAKE PERCHES. 
In making perches, one of our friends has a plan that may be of use to 
‘some beginner. Take a square tobacco caddy with dove-tailed corners, 
:such as can be had at any tobacco counter. Remove the bottom and saw 
‘the sides in two half way. A small block of wood nailed in the angle furnishes 
an easy way to fasten the perch to the wall. 
PITTSBURG MARKET. 
Our customers repeatedly call our attention to the fine market for squabs in 
Pittsburg. They are quoted at $4 a dozen in the newspapers there, and we 
have customers in that city who are getting as high as a dollar apiece, or 
$12 a dozen, for first-class squabs bred from our birds, weighing a pound ° 
apiece. It is quite true that Pittsburg is an excellent squab market, in 
fact, one of the best in the country, as there are so many rich people there. 
We have also some good, live, wide-awake customers who are shipping 
squabs to Pittsburg, and they have shown Pittsburg squab buyers the 
superiority of well-bred squabs. The result is that they have worked up 
an insistent demand which must be satisfied. What our customers have done 
for Pittsburg anybody can do living near a city, or a town. This work of 
letting your nearest market know what you have, and then showing what 
you have to the market must be done by you. Nobody can do it for you. 
The prices you can get for your squabs, and the demand for your squabs, 
which you can create, rest entirely with you. Nobody can do this from 
a distance—you are on the ground and such work must be done by you. 
LOW QUOTATIONS. 
Beginners may find in the newspapers or in letters from commission men 
a low quotation for squabs. Some will write to commission men and dealers 
asking them what they will pay for squabs, etc. In nearly every case the 
commission man or dealer will write back an absurdly low price. It is to 
his advantage of course to buy squabs as cheap as he can and sell as dear as 
he can. The most peculiar feature of such matters to us is that the breeder 
or prospective breeder of squabs apparently takes the matter for settled 
and writes us that he can get only $1.50 or $2 a dozen for squabs. Such 
people seem to be lacking entirely in any business ability. An eight-year- 
old boy who is accustomed to selling newspapers has enough business judg- 
ment to prevent him from writing such a letter. Of course the commission 
men or squab dealers start with a very low price. If the breeder will sell 
to him at this very low price, that is so much more to the advantage of the 
commission man or dealer. He is writing to feel out the breeder. If the 
breeder writes back to him and says, ‘‘Your price is too low, you will never 
get my squabs for this figure,” then the commission man or dealer will raise 
his prices. The dealer who is selling squabs for from $3 to $6 or more a 
dozen (as they all are) will pay from $2.50 to $4 a dozen, no matter who he 
is or where he lives, in any part of the United States or Canada. 
The only way for you to determine the true market price of squabs wher- 
ever you live is to go into the market or apply by letter and offer to buy 
squabs and not to sell them. In all the letters you write and all the talk 
