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APPENDIX G 



HOW I DRESS MY SQUABa 



" The method here described applies to those which I deliver to 

 femilies. I draw them and^ cut off the head and feet. I do not 

 believe in selling squabs alive to a retail trade." — R. C. Boyd. 



WHY SQUABS SHOULD NOT BE SOLD 



ALIVE, iy R. C. Boyd. The squab from 

 which the above picture was made weighed 

 seven-eighths of a pound: a white-skinned 

 Homer. The picture shows the way I dress 

 my squabs for my private customers, with 

 one exception: I draw them and take crop 

 out perfectly clean. I also give with each 

 order a couple of printed recipes. I do not sell 

 live squabs to customers except on special 

 request. I give them no reduction. I charge 

 the same for a live squab as I do for a dressed 

 one. Consequently my customers do not 

 order live ones. One should not sell live 

 squabs to private trade because (1) some will 

 order to get them a little cheaper than dressed 

 ones. (^ It is a knock against the squab 

 business. (3) No cook or other servant in 

 private families likes to dress poultry. If 

 they have to do it, you bet they could burn 

 them a little or have them cooked in some 

 way that would make the mistress not want 

 any more squabs in her house. When I solicit 

 customers, the first thing they ask me is: 

 " You dress them, do you? How much are 

 they in the rough? " Answer: Seventy cents 

 small, eighty-five cents large. " How much 

 dressed? " Answer: Seventy cents small, and 

 eighty-five cents large. I hope all other 

 squab men who are catering to private trade 

 will not sell any squabs in the rough. 



The seventy-five pairs of Plymouth Rock 

 Homers which I purchased of you are doing 

 good work. They are the most carefully 

 selected birds as to size and color that I ever 

 purchased. The Cameaux are large birds, 

 and breeding rapidly, — ^D, D, Powell, Cali- 

 fornia. 



It pays to be a live squab breeder. Remem- 

 ber that the inscriptions on the tombstones of 

 the dead ones do not tell what their faults were. 



$30 FOR GRAIN. $100 TO 

 $120 FOR SQUABS, by J. B. 

 Beckman. I must say I am 

 doing fine with my Extra Ply- 

 mouth Rock Homers and they 

 are doing fine with me, so we 

 get along very well. I do for 

 them and they do for me. You 

 ought to see the swell addition 

 I am putting on my plant for 

 three hundred pairs more. I 

 have not shipped very many 

 squabs for I have been saving 

 them for breeding birds. I 

 have now seven hundred pairs 

 not counting squabs. I never 

 lost a breeding bird in the last 

 moult, and the house is just a 

 mass of squabs, nests and eggs. 

 I was the first one in this 

 Missouri town to start a squab 

 plant and they all laughed at 

 me and assured me I must have 

 money to bum, and went so far 

 as to tell me I had no sense to 

 put up such a fine building for 

 the old pigeons. If I had listened to them I 

 would not have a fine plant worth about $2200, 

 with birds, and just as it stands I would not 

 take for my place now $6000. But I have them 

 all thinking when they come out and see for 

 themselves what is going on at my house. 

 Last Sunday there were fifty-one persons out 

 to see the fine birds and I feel very proud of it, 

 too. 



There is a man close to me who is ruiming 

 a dairy farm.. He has ten milk cows and he 

 said when I showed him my account in the 

 German-American Bank, just on my squab 

 plant from last March to fbrst of September, 

 1909, that I had his father beat qn his dairy 

 business. He didn't say how much. 



From March 18, 1909, to September 11, 

 1909, I sold $392.63 worth of squabs from 229 

 pairs of breeders, expenses $150.35, total of 

 $242.28 net profit. If I had 1000 pairs I 

 would have made a nice piece of money and 

 you see I will make more when I get better 

 posted on these lines, raising my squabs and 

 marketing also. There is always something 

 to learn about this. 



I am shipping seven dozen fine squabs per 

 week, which bring me from $25 to $30 a week, 

 and it costs me $1 a day for feeding, or $30 a 

 month. I tell you it's fine doings. 



I have been in this business now alinost two 

 years, have made quite a success, and I am 

 well pleased when one comes to see my plant, 

 for it is a dandy. 



My Plymouth Rock Homer squabs are 

 dandies. Weighed several pairs of squabs 

 already, and one pair twenty-six days old 

 weighed two pounds four ounces. None less 

 than three quarters of a pound each have I 

 found yet. My birds are all working now 

 and I expect great doings from them , for they 

 are certainly hustlers. — Norman E. Crozier, 

 New York. 



