/'/, ) .1/0 ( Til ROCK 8TA A />. 1 /'/> ,1 A /> />' /,'/;/;/) JtOO K (5!) 



combined prolific egg producing and good market qualities that 

 until they proved themselves, as Stoddard says they were, incip- 

 ient fowls, they were eagerly sought. 



Efforts to Establish a General Purpose Fowl Continue. 



Then for some time no Plymouth Rocks existed. But we have 

 reason to believe that efforts to establish a fowl of the general 

 purpose type continued. It was not a difficult matter, however, 

 to combine opposite types and decidedly dissimilar patterns, but 

 it proved to be a very difficult problem to breed the desired qual- 

 ities together and make the breeding hold any definite type or 

 color pattern. No blood seemed to amalgamate with that of the 

 Asiatic which was invariably the basis of these crosses. At last, 

 however, blood sufficiently strong to hold its own with the here- 

 tofore dominant Asiatic blood was mixed with it. The result 

 was most gratifying. Strange to say, this new blood that is, 

 new in the sense of being untried was the fowl of native devel- 

 opment, of unknown origin and commonly kept on the farms and 

 in the back yards of New England. 



ORIGIN OF THE MODERN PLYMOUTH ROCK 



By common consent the cross that originated the Plymouth 

 Rock was made in the yards of Joseph Spaulding of Putnam, 

 Connecticut. A few of the progeny of the first cross were sold 

 to D. A. Upham of Wilsonville of the same State who, after 

 breeding them but a few seasons, perhaps no more than two, was 

 the first to present them to the public. Plymouth Rocks as exhi- 

 bition fowls made their first appearance at Worcester, Massa- 

 chusetts, in March, 1869. The above facts are not seriously dis- 

 puted, if disputed at all, nor have they been to the writer's recol- 

 lection, which extends back to the early 80's. 



It would hardly seem that a more competent or trustworthy 

 source of information as to the origin of this new race would be 

 found than the same Mr. Upham who first brought them to the 

 public's attention and but a few years after the original cross 

 to establish them was made. 



Mr. Upham's Account. Mr. Upham tells this story in the 

 Poultry World (1876), only seven years after he first exhibited 

 Plymouth Rocks and but ten or eleven years after the original 

 Spaulding cross was made. This account, as related at that 

 time, we are glad to reprint : 



"Nearly ten years ago we bred, named and introduced the 

 first fowls and chicks of tiiis variety ever shown to the public 



