The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-02-04
PIGEONS AS QUAILS.
STORIES TOLD OF MONSTER COPIES
 IN WISCONSIN,,
Where Birds are Raised for Market.

When the western packer who want
 ed to enter the Four Hundred offered Ward McAllster one thousand dollars , to teach him the society way of eating quail on toast, he did not know the chances were dollars to doughnuts thai the meat he was to experiment. Witt was Wisconsin pigeon, instead of Ne : braska quail. That the shipment of
 these quail ' is an industry peculiar
 to Watertown of all Wisconsin towns
 would be a surprise to even most Mil.
 that about thirty thousand pigeons are kept in cotes in that city to breed and
 sell to game dealers
 As a matter of fact, Watertown's
 'quail'' industry is one which would as- tonish the average Wisconsin person by it's magnitude. Thousands Je birds are killed there and shipped to Chicago and the east annually, but in Milwaukee, only few miles away, there is almost no market for the birds. This is prob ably because the game laws in this state forbid the sale or killing of the real bird, so any placing of the substitute delicacy on a menu card would bring the game Wardens around in coveys. The occasional pigeon pie, however, may be a Watertown exportation.
 In and near that city there are no less than five dove cotes, in one of which alone over fourteen thousand pigeons are housed, The four smaller cotes are all within a radius of five miles from the city, and all do a strange business. The largest of the cotes is owned and conducted by Albert Wege- mann. It Is on the bank of the Rock river, and consists of court surround ed on three sides by low brick buildings, like the old California monasteries. In one corner is the frame granary, and in another remodelced dwelling house. 1 One dove alone can make small bit of a noise with it's coong, but when thousands of the birds are gurgling at once the sound is audible for block more. The entrance of an intruder va ries the sound as the millions of feath- CTS beat the air, taking one back to the times of the Arabian Nights, when the great roc lowered over it's victims.
 Inside the court which forms the big cote there were found on a recent visit few birds flying about, but the ma jority were under wire screen. It was almost feeding time and the doves were flying about aimlessly, those in side the brick buildings peeping out from the e-dweller- like holes which spotted the walls between the windows, as if anxious for dinner to be served.
 PIGEONS OF ALL KINDS
 There were pigeons of all kinds and co1ors. The eropper. with his copper colored body, stood out in marked con- trast to the pure white birds mingled among those of more mixed blood, while the ruffle-necks perched on the clothes-hanger racks inside the wire cage, and the blowers puffed out their threats as if trying to imagine that their crops were full. Black and yell low "tumblers,' homers, and "letter- carriers" lived in the same happy fam fly with the mongrel, most of the birds being those with the changeable cerise and green feathers which form a collar about their necks.
 Down in the basement of the lofts bags of crushed corn were warming, and then it was time to feed the | 'quais" Three bags of crushed corn were for lunch, and three bags more of broken barley from the brewerss were to form the breakfast in the morning. In the inclosure there were watering troughs, fed by a continuous stream of | water from pipe line. and on the | ground near the troughs the bags full of | grain were dumped
 While the pigeons flocked out from | the lofts by the thousands, carpeting | the ground with their feathered bodies, the common English sparrows gathered l about the wire netting, shivering and | riffling up their feathers 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 dash among the pigeons for a bit 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.
 FOR THE MARKET.
 Now Is about the dullest period of the year in the pigeon business but even at this time the shipments of dressed squabs, and older birds as we'll will run to about four hundred a week, largely to Chicago and New York The birds are taken from the lofts which are ranged along the interior of the cote like shelves, their necks slit, and their bodies plucked, and when they are ready for the market Some are sold in the east as quail, where much of the supposed game at fashionable res- is pigeon from Watertown offs
 There Is no choice in the species of birds, any strangers that are offered to the owners of the cotes being accepted, norners and swallow doves alike. It is ,he young that sell best, the squabs which are killed before they are fully out. The prices paid range rom twenty-five to thirty-five cents a pair to twenty five cents each, dressed
 SHUTTING GEESE.
 There is another bird industry at Wa ertOWn and in the surrounding coun- ry and that is the stuffing of geese. From the stuffed geese the delicious pate de foie gras is prepared, and the Wisconsin city is one of the few ship ping places of this delicacy in the Uni ed States. Shipments are even made