with an amplitude and particularity in the
discussion of the different breeds and varieties, which shuts all
suspicions of _self-interest_ into the corner, have given such a fund of
information on the subject, that any further inquiry may, with entire
good will, be turned over to their pages.

THE DOVECOTE.

This is a department, in itself, not common among the farm buildings,
in the United States; and for the reason, probably, that the domestic
pigeon, or house-dove, is usually kept more for amusement than for
profit--there being little actual profit about them--and is readily
accommodated in the spare lofts of sheds and out-buildings devoted to
other purposes. Pigeons, however, add to the variety and interest of the
poultry department; and as there are many different breeds of them, they
are general favorites with the juveniles of the family.

Our present object is, not to propose any distinct building for pigeon
accommodation; but to give them a location in other buildings, where
they will be conveniently provided with room, and least annoying by
their presence--for, be it known, they are oft-times a most serious
annoyance to many crops of the farm, when kept in any considerable
numbers, as well as in the waste and havoc they make in the stores of
the barns and granaries. Although graceful and beautiful birds,
generally clean and tidy in their personal habits out of doors, they are
the filthiest housekeepers imaginable, and no building can be especially
devoted to their use, if not often swept and cleaned, but what will soon
become an intolerable nuisance within, and not much better without, and
the ground immediately around the premises a dirty place. The common
pigeon is a pugnacious cavalier, warring apparently upon mere punctilio,
as we have often seen, in the distant strut-and-coo of a stranger bird
to his mate, even if she be the very incarnation of "rejected
addresses." On all these accounts, we would locate--unless a small and
select family of fancy birds, perhaps--the pigeon stock at the principal
farm-yard, and in the lofts of the cattle sheds, or the chambers of the
stable.

Wherever the pigeon accommodations are designed to be, a close partition
should separate their quarters from the room occupied for other
purposes, with doors for admission to those who have to do with them,
in cleaning their premises, or to take the birds, when needed. A line of
holes, five inches high, and four inches wid