BUFF ORPINGTONS. 



295 



specimens distinctly keeled, almost like some 

 exhibition ducks, and this ought certainly to 

 be deprecated.* It is probably due to care- 

 lessness of these points that statements have 

 lately appeared to the effect that some strains 

 of tlie Black Orpington have not kept up its 

 reputation as a good layer. Both abundance 

 and size of eggs would, however, quickly 

 respond to selection for these qualities, in the 

 manner insisted upon in former chapters of 

 this work. 



The first pair of Buff Orpingtons ever 

 shown as such were exhibited by the late Mr. 

 W. Cook at the Dairy Show of October, 1894, 

 when Mr. Cook drew our special 

 Buff attention to them, and made the 



Orpingtons, same statement which has been 

 made on many other occasions, that 

 they were produced by mating a Golden- 

 spangled Hamburgh with a coloured Dorking 

 hen, pullets from the produce being mated 

 with a Buff Cochin cock, the main character- 

 istic of the birds being the combination of 

 buff plumage, with white legs and feet. We 

 remarked, on this earliest possible occasion, 

 that a fowl with such points might probably 

 prove both valuable and popular ; but that 

 there was grave objection to calling them 

 Orpingtons, since he had already appropriated 

 that name to another fowl, which had, accord- 

 ing to his own account, not one single element 

 in common. Such nomenclature would not 

 have been allowed by the Poultry Association 

 of America, and objection to it was widely 

 expressed by the most prominent authorities in 

 England, with scarcely an exception ; the 

 already existing Orpington Club also pro- 

 tested against the same name being given to 

 another fowl which had not in it one atom of 

 the same constituents as theirs. A consider- 

 able amount of discussion took place later, 

 emphasised by the fact that precisely similar 

 fowls were exhibited under another name at 

 the Smithfield Club Show of dead poultry. 

 Owing largely to this latter circumstance, the 

 question was finally brought before the 

 Poultry Club, who decided that it was then 

 too late to interfere ; but intimated that such 

 a case would not again be allowed to pass 

 unnoticed, and in this way it is to be hoped 

 that the circumstances may have produced a 

 more definite understanding concerning such 

 matters in the poultry world. 



The actual origin of the breed must be 

 questioned, as well as its present name. 



* The only other breed in which we have personally seen such 

 a peculiarity is the Faverolles. 



There is no reason to doubt that Mr. Cook 

 really did breed birds as stated, and that 

 these have been sold as Buff 

 ^"a^d*"^^'"^""^ Orpingtons, or that to his per- 

 Lincolnshire Buffs, sistent advertising and pushing 

 it the popularity of the fowl was 

 mainly due ; the latter fact proving that 

 capital may be employed as successfully in 

 floating a variety of poultry as in founding a 

 new journal. But evidence was published 

 simply overwhelming in amount, to the effect 

 that the stock about the country is mainly 

 derived from breeding up to points a gradu- 

 ally formed and popular local amalgam of 

 Buff Cochin and Dorking, which has long 

 been known in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, and 

 still more so in Lincolnshire ; whence it has 

 been called, in market parlance, the " Lin- 

 colnshire Buff," forming a large portion of the 

 " Boston " fowls sent to the London market. 



To sum up a controversy given at some 

 length in a previous edition, there is no reason 

 to doubt that Mr. Cook bred birds as alleged, 

 and it is well known that some of the early 

 Bufl: Orpingtons sent out bred very much as 

 might be expected from such heterogeneous 

 crossing. There is an abundance of evidence 

 that all breeders who took up the new breed 

 found plenty of work to do in it, and that 

 some of them selected simply the best speci- 

 mens they could find, wherever they could find 

 them, in Surrey, or Lincolnshire, or anywhere. 

 That birds were bought in the latter county 

 of people who had bred nothing else for a 

 quarter of a century and were shown directly 

 as Buff Orpingtons, and used by Buff Orping- 

 ton breeders, is quite certain ; and various suc- 

 cessful strains have no doubt had different 

 local origins, v.'hich accounts for the fact 

 stated by Mr. Richardson presently, of the 

 evil results found to follow from crossing 

 these difl:erent strains. It is noteworthy 

 that none of the early show specimens had 

 the shape of the Black Orpington, all being 

 higher on the leg, longer in the back, and less 

 massive in the body ; but breeders have, as 

 we write in 191 1, by paying attention to make 

 and shape, overcome these defects. 



The merits and utility of the breed stand 

 apart from its origin and name. Those who 

 objected to the latter were accused of making 

 a "virulent attack upon the breed," but with- 

 out, as far as we know, any foundation. The 

 fowl itself was recognised by nearly all as 

 a most valuable one, endorsed already by the 

 long experience of the Lincolnshire breeders 

 as a first-class breed for the market ; and 

 speedily found, as soon as kept alive for other 



