CHAPTER XV 



CONSTRUCTION OF SQUAB HOUSES 



SQUAB HOUSES I HAVE SEEN 



There has been more development in scientific farming and 

 stock raising along practical lines the last fifty years than dur- 

 ing the preceding five hundred years. This has been chiefly 

 due to the education of the producing classes brought around 

 by the improvements in travel and the transportation of thought. 



It is no longer necessary for one to acquire all of his knowl- 

 edge through personal experience as it was in time gone by 

 when each man's world was bounded by the horizon. It costs 

 money and requires time to experiment. Therefore, if a hundred 

 men can profit by the experience of one or ten thousand men 

 by the experience of a hundred and each more or less by the 

 experience of the whole, much money, time and labor can not 

 only be saved, but improvements will come that much faster for 

 thoughts and ideas grow as they travel. 



The squab industry is comparatively new and there are many 

 squab raisers whose experience is limited by the knowledge 

 they have chiefly acquired through their own personal efforts. 

 As I have made a study of squab raising for years and have 

 personally visited most of the squab plants, both large and small, 

 throughout the United States and Canada and have made it an 

 , object to compare the methods of the different breeders, I feel 

 that the information so gathered should prove valuable to others. 



By comparing the success of one breeder with another along 

 with his methods I have been able to determine, at least to 

 my own satisfaction, the cause of success or failure. I have 

 found that most every breeder possesses ideas of his own which 

 are detrimental to his success and others that have considerable 

 merit. Then, too, in almost every plant I have been able to 

 obtain an idea that I could put to some value. If not direct, I 

 could couple it with an idea that I got somewhere else and by 

 improving the two combined work out something of great value. 



In otH'er cases I find large successful squab breeders were 



m 



