I'LYMOUTH ROCK STANDARD AND BREED BOOK 97 



shire. Mr. Upham sold over one hundred settings of eggs during 

 this show. When faced by these facts it is apparent that Plym- 

 outh Rocks won public approval almost instantly. With the 

 poultry interested public, it was and henceforth has been a case 

 of love at first sight. Mr. Upham was astounded at the price he 

 found customers willing to pay for an unheard-of mongrel, as 

 two dollars per setting was the price at which he sold the eggs, 

 though he was obliged to return much of it because orders were 

 more numerous than eggs the following season. 



Mr. Upham could not sell his birds and maintain a monopoly 

 at one and the same time. Besides, new strains of like or similar 

 fowls might have been created had he not sold. No doubt many 

 "original" imitations did materialize as it was. In fact, we have 

 more than one clear and authentic account of one strain, so 

 created, that obtained considerable prominence. Several strains 

 soon developed. Besides the Upham, there were the Ramsdell, 

 the Drake, the Oilman and the Essex County, later the Essex. 

 We should not quite yet count out the Spaulding strain, for many 

 still procured birds from that source. 



The Spaulding Strain. We know that the Spauldings con- 

 tinued breeding these birds for some years because we find refer- 

 ences of this one or that one having procured their birds from 

 them ; as "such a strain is largely of Spaulding's stock, etc." 

 Upham and Bishop tell us that the Spauldings bred largely for 

 eggs as a commercial commodity. Erom the lack of information 

 to the contrary it seems probable that they continued breeding 

 the progeny of the original cross. They had, at the smallest cal- 

 culations, the intense satisfaction of having laid the foundation 

 fcr a structure that would endure as the best of its kind for gen- 

 erations and of having those progressive pioneers, Upham and 

 Ramsdell, start with their original stock. 



The Upham Strain. Mr. Upham maintained a supremacy of 

 quality in Plymouth Rocks for a number of years. Of this 

 strain, Mark Pitman said : "About everything that was good in 

 these times came from Upham." Such tribute coming from a 

 successful contemporary is as much as need be spoken or written 

 of the quality of Mr. Upham's Plymouth Rocks. Mr. Upham 

 relates that he had no particular hobby. The poultry business 

 was a considerable item in his business transactions. His aim 

 was to produce a taking fowl. Such a fowl must have size and 

 distinct markings. In that stage of development males and 

 females of anything like the same shade were rarely, if ever, 



