42 AMERICAN POULTRY 



duction, the European countries, England especially, owe much 

 to the importations during modern times. Many of the fowls 

 that were obtained from China early in the nineteenth century 

 were of widely different types from those that migrated through 

 Western Asia and Eastern Europe some centuries before. 



First Authentic Accounts. Exact information upon poultry 

 topics is exceedingly meager until within the last one hundred 

 years or so. Almost nothing of the methods employed in keep- 

 ing flocks or of the description of the breeds is found up to the 

 early part of the nineteenth century, and it is about the middle 

 of this century before anything satisfactory is found upon either 

 topic. We are obliged, therefore, to draw most of our con- 

 clusions concerning the evolution and transition in both, partly 

 from the evidence supplied by the accumulative results of which 

 we are the eye witnesses, partly from such literature of the tran- 

 sitory periods as is available, and somewhat from the information 

 given by our veteran associates. 



Types Geographical. The English and French have been 

 particularly zealous in developing splendid breeds of fowls which 

 have a leaning toward a fine meat carcass rather than to heavy 

 egg production. The Spaniards, Italians, and Hollanders have 

 paid more attention to egg-producing qualities. The Asiatic 

 races produced the largest and most magnificent of all fowls, 

 which were also the most pronounced meat types. 



Early American Importations. Comparatively early in the 

 life of the nation, Americans adopted many foreign breeds. 

 About the middle of the nineteenth century, especially a little 

 later, the large Asiatic breeds found much favor with poultry 

 keepers in this country. Their influence upon breeds that orig- 

 inated here is incalculable. The late Mark Pitman, a former 

 resident of Salem, Massachusetts, once related to the writer some 

 interesting facts about these importations. From this account it 

 appeared that many of them were not undertaken for the purpose 

 of acquiring new blood or new breeds for the American poultry- 

 men, but for no higher motives than to provide fresh meat from 

 time to time for the shipmaster's table. Those fowls that reached 

 America alive owed their survival to their lean condition as, 

 unfortunately, the best wrre usually the first choice, and the 

 poorest, because confined on shipboard, became eventually so 

 poor that they were unfit for the table and survived the entire 

 journey to become the progenitors of new races or strains. This 

 information enables us to understand why so few of the impor- 



