New Ulm review., 1901-04-17
PIGEONS AS QUAILS.
Monster Cotes in Wisconsin Where
Birds Are Raised for
Market.

When the western packer who
wanted to enter the Four Hundred
offered Ward McAllister $1,000 to
teach him the society way of eating
quail on toast, he did not know the
chances were dollars to doughnuts
that the meat he was to experiment
on was Wisconsin pigeon, instead of
Nebraska quail. That the shipment
of these quail is, an industry pc
culiar to Waterto own of all Wisconsin
towns would be a surprise to even
most Milwaukeeans who as rule are
unaware that about 10000 pigeons
are kept in cotes in that city to breed
and sell to game dealers.
As matter of fact, says the Mil
waullee Sentinel, Watertown's "uuail''
industry is one which would astonish
the average Wisconsin person by its
magnitude. Thousands of birds are
killed there and shipped to Chicago
and the east annually, but in Milwau-
kee, only a few miles away, there is
almost no market for the birds. This
is probably because the game laws
of this state forbid the sale or killing
of the real bird, SO any pacing of the
substitute delicacy on menu card
would bring the game wardens
around in coveys. The occasional
pigeon pie however, may be Water
town expectation.
In and near that city there are no
less than FIVE dove cotes, in one Of
which alone over $4,000 pigeons are
housed. The four smaller cotes are
all within a radius of five miles from
the city, and all do strange busi-
ness. The largest of the cotes is
owned and conducted by Albert Weg-
emann. 1t is on the bank of the
Rock river, and consists of a court
surrounded on three sides by low
brick buildings like the old California
monasteries. In one corner is the
frame granary, and in another a re-
modelled dwelling house.
Inside the court which forms the
big cote there were found on re-
cent visit few birds flying about,
but the majority were under wire
screen. 1t was almost feeding time
and the doves were flying about aim
lessly, those inside the brick build
ings peeping out from the cave dwell
er-like holes which spotted the walls
between the windows, as if anxious
for dinner to be served
Down in the basement of the lofts
bags of crushed corn were warming,
and then it was time 60 feed the
EQUALS" Three bags of crushed corn
We're for lunch, and three bags more
of broken barley from the breweries
were to form the breakfast in the
morning. In the inclosure there were
watering troughs, fed by continu-
Gus stream of water from pipe line,
and on the ground near the troughs
the bags full of grain We're dumped.
While the pigeons focked out from
the lofts by the thousands, carpeting
the ground with their feathered
bodies, the common English sparrows
gathered about the wire netting,
shivering, and ruffling up their feath-
ers in the cold, looking hungrily down
at the doves below which were being
fatted for the killing. The sparrows
could get through the netting, but
a 3udoll uIhoiiS ShC PiSOCilS loI d Dlt
of corn would be but to be beaten to
the ground under the wings of the
larger birds which were continually
moving from one part of the cage to
the other.
There is no choice in the species Of
birds, any strangers that are offered
to the owners of the cotes being ac-
cepted, homers and swallow doves
alike It is the young that sell best,
the squads which are killed before
they are fully feathered out. The
prices paid range from 25 cents to 35
cents a pair to 25 cents each dressed.
Merely Truce.
she-I understand they have made
up their quarrel.
He-It's only temporary. They're
going to get married.-N. Y. Town