74 AMERICAN POULTRY ASSOCIATION 



cross. This disputation itself showed that the fanciers consid- 

 ered the Plymouth Rock well worthy of attention, and also that 

 it was advancing with rapid strides to the first place in the esti- 

 mation of breeders generally. 



"As before intimated, there were several different suspected 

 origins to this breed, and some two or three, perhaps, worthy of 

 mention. The most reliable one, however, in the estimation of 

 breeders of the present day, was the cross of a single combed 

 Dominique cock with Black Java hens. This may not be 

 admitted by all, but it has the best authority, and is now gener- 

 ally acquiesced in." 



"It is now universally admitted that the Plymouth Rock is 

 the resultant of the process of breeding the old-fashioned Domi- 

 nique the native American fowl on Black Java hens, a sort 

 now nearly or quite unknown in this country ; but who orig- 

 inated this cross is a matter of dispute which probably will 

 always remain in statu quo. It is enough for the breeders to 

 know that the union of the hawk-color and the black was effected, 

 and few will care for purposeless search beyond Drake and 

 Ramsdell or Upham. We are all looking forward and not back- 

 ward, and were the entire past of this breed save the knowledge 

 of what the cross was blotted out, breeders would be no way 

 troubled to manage their stock as successfully as ever. Still, the 

 history of the breed contains much of interest and we will give 

 briefly the history of Plymouth Rocks ancient and modern 

 before going into the discussion of questions more immediately 

 affecting their treatment in the present." 



Joseph Wallace, a little later, 1888, in "Barred and White 

 Plymouth Rocks," accepts the view of others of a Dominique 

 and Java as the first cross. 



As to the statement of Ayer, who seems to think that there 

 are several claimants for the honor of making the first cross, 

 and that Upham is one of them, the writer is in a position to 

 assure all readers that Upham did not in his later years, if he 

 ever did, claim to have made the original cross, but accords that 

 honor to Spaulding upon the suggestion of another. 



Corbin rather evades a discussion, but comes to a conclusion 

 without presenting argument or facts. The same may be said 

 of all the others, except perhaps Stoddard, who qualifies by say- 

 ing that the Java involved is not the Java of the present day, 



