squab to eat, then you will find a quick call for all the live breeders you can supply.

We have tried to answer all the questions which a beginner would ask and give all the details so plainly that any one can begin breeding pigeons and raising squabs with success. The instructions given are based on actual experience in raising squabs and we have tried to write so plainly that any one can understand just how to begin and continue in the business.

Those who follow the instructions given may look forward with confidence to a successful career as pigeon-breeders provided they begin with the right kind of breeding stock, the kind which produces heavy-weight, plump, white-fleshed squabs.

CARL DARE.

Des Moines, Iowa, October 15, 1914.

A Pair of Beautiful Blue Bar Mammoth Homers, Straight American Bred.

CHAPTER I

PROFITS OF SQUAB RAISING—WILL IT PAY?

In first considering squab breeding the beginner always asks, "Will It Pay Me to Raise Squabs?" It is well to consider this phase of any business before making very much of an investment.

The squab business is comparatively new in this country although it has already reached such proportions that there can not be any doubt but it is the most profitable and pleasant business in which any one may engage. Under the methods outlined in this book there is no chance for a conscientious worker to fail.

This country is filled with plants large and small and I have yet to find a plant that is not paying a handsome profit unless there be something wrong with the stock or methods employed. I have visited the great squab plants of California where thousands upon thousands of birds are left to fly at will and nest in open boxes protected only from the sun, and here I find that the squabs are paying a fine return on the investment and thousands of tourists visit these large plants annually and pay an admission fee of fifty cents each so that the revenue from this source is considerable.

I have visited also the great squab district in South Jersey where the squabs are produced for the large cities of the East; the plants also in Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania, and I find that on the best equipped and best paying plants the methods employed are practically identical with those outlined in this book. The fact that experienced breeders in such widely separated sections of the country have adopted almost identical methods is certainly proof that we have the right idea and that the advice we give here to the beginner will be well worth while.

The largest plants in the country are in the far East and far West as indicated, but I believe there is no one other state that has so many up-to-date plants as the state of Iowa. You will find a paying squab farm in nearly every city of this state, and in some of them there are two or three large and up-to-date, well equipped plants. In one little town in the northern part of the state there is a plant where over fifteen thousand breeders are kept right along. The proprietor of this plant has told me that when he began with a few pairs of Homers of indiscriminate breeding he had hardly enough funds to pay for the birds and their feed for the first few months. He now owns the large plant of several thousand birds of the purest stock with suitable buildings, and a beautiful home and drives an up-to-date seven-passenger auto-mobile. His son and daughter are both attending a university in the East and every cent of his money has been made with pigeons. If his were the only case of such kind there would still be proof enough of the profits in the squab business to justify careful consideration by anyone, but I personally know of thousands of others who have made a success, some of them on a larger scale, and there can no longer be any doubt of the opportunity of making money in this business.

THE PROFITS OF SQUAB RAISING

In another place in this book we have shown how easy it is to arrange a place in which to keep squabs. Hundreds of people are so situated that they could raise squabs who could not possibly take care of a flock of chickens, because they lack both time and space.

In raising squabs the cost of attendance is reduced to the minimum. There are no eggs to be gathered, no setting hens or incubators to be looked after, no young birds to be fed and cared for. The pigeon-breeder simply puts his birds in the loft, feeds and waters them and they build their own nests and feed their young.

The space that would be needed by a dozen hens will comfortably keep fifty or a hundred pairs of pigeons, and the revenue from a pair of pigeons in a year is about the same as from a good laying hen.

The squab-breeder gets his money in four weeks, while the man who raises chickens must wait at least twelve weeks before he can sell his birds.

The manure from a loft of pigeons can be sold as a garden fertilizer for enough to pay for the cost of feeding the birds. In many cities and towns florists consider pigeon manure the best fertilizer they can get for flowers and garden crops and large tanneries use tons of it in tanning leather. It usually sells for 50 cents a bushel in town for fertilizing lawns, flower and vegetable gardens.

It will cost just about $1.00 to keep a pair of pigeons one year. When the writer visited the great squab farms of South Jersey, he particularly inquired about the cost of feeding a pair of pigeons one year. In that country most of the grain is shipped from the West and from Canada. The wheat comes from New York, Ohio, or states further west, the kaffir corn mostly comes from Kansas and the hemp seed from Kentucky. The peas come from Canada. All these grains are sold with the freight added to the initial price and the feed dealer's profit, of course. In the Mid-West the freight charges would be much smaller than they are in the East, so the cost of keeping a pair of pigeons would be considerably reduced.

In the South Jersey squab district we found that the cost of keeping a pair of breeding Homers one year ranges from $1.10 to $1.25 a year. In other sections of the country the cost runs as low as 85 cents per pair. If a certain loft contains pigeons of extra breeding qualities, it will cost more for feed, as the old birds have more squabs to feed than would be the case where less productive birds were kept.

It should be understood that when we give the cost of keeping a pair of breeding pigeons the cost of raising their squabs is included. That is when we say it costs about $1.00 to keep a pair of pigeons a year, we mean it will cost this amount to keep the pair and all the squabs they produce in a year.

Fig. 1. A Handy, Home-made Net For Catching the Birds.

CHAPTER II

THE BEST BREEDS FOR SQUAB RAISING—THE KIND TO BUY

In selecting a breed, the beginner is at once struck by the hundreds of different varieties, each one with some merit, and each one put forward by breeders of more or less reputation as the one best variety to be handled. I believe I have thoroughly tried and tested the merits of all the leading varieties of squab producing pigeons and right here I wish to caution the beginner against paying fancy prices for highly advertised