/'/, V.I/or'/ 1 // JfOCK STANDARD AM) BHEHD HOOK 01 



1 never crossed the strain since I began brooding them until years 

 after I sold Mr. Feleh the lot I had remaining. 



That history of Mr. Bishop will be very useful to you, as he gave 

 the first history of the Plymouth Rocks. 



The Essex strain, which I had from the beginning, were bred in 

 and in four, five or six years being noted for the time as the Essex 

 County Strain, the particulars of which no man can give you as good 

 an account as myself, which I will do if you will call upon me. 



Let me suggest to you to take an early train some morning, call 

 upon Mr. Atherton, get the book, then take Electric Winter Hill car 

 in Boston, which takes you directly to Thurston Street, where I shall 

 be happy to see you at any time and give you my remembrance of all 

 you wish to know. 



I am at home always as I have been an invalid many months and 

 not able to go out, and shall be happy to make your acquaintance. 



Very sincerely, 



MAEK PITMAN. 



June the tenth, nineteen hundred. 



Per N. W. P. 



THE MALE PARENT 



Fortunately, for the reader, the male parentage is not so un- 

 certain. As Lewis Wright states : "All agree that one of the 

 parents was the Dominique fowl." All our American accounts 

 state that the male parent of Spaulding's cross was a Dominique. 

 Furthermore, it seems agreed that all who attempted to create a 

 fowl after the pattern of the Spaulding stock, whatever else they 

 used, always used a Dominique male. This seems to be univer- 

 sally true, except in the case of the Drake crosses. Drake states : 

 "Coming across a lot of 'hawk-colored pullets' I was so pleased 

 with them that instead of butchering I bred them with an avail- 

 able Asiatic grade." The term "hawk-colored" used by Mr. 

 Drake was one that was in common use among the breeders of 

 Massachusetts and Connecticut, for which reason the writer re- 

 luctantly applies the term "Dominique" which others have been 

 so ready to do, because the Dominique of today has a rose-comb, 

 while the fowl used in this original cross had, according to all 

 accounts, a single comb, though it is related that some of them 

 had rose-combs even in those days. The term "Dominiques," 

 though, gives the impression of a rose-comb fowl to nearly 

 every reader, but let it be understood that the term "Dominique" 

 as applied to the male parent in the Spaulding cross was a single- 

 comb bird and of an unknown origin. That there should be so 

 much disagreement in regard to the character of the female and 



