158 AMERICAN POULTRY ASSOCIATION 



Barred Plymouth Rocks, like white fowl, often show brassi- 

 ness or creaminess. This is because the ground color or light bar 

 is not clear and in this case show yellow, giving as a whole the 

 brassy or creamy appearance. 



MATING TO PRODUCE EXHIBITION SPECIMENS 



The breeding of Barred Plymouth Rocks, even of the high- 

 est exhibition merit, is not as difficult as is generally thought. 

 The breeder who starts with good individual specimens and fol- 

 lows a few simple and established laws of mating can be as- 

 sured of success from the beginning. 



It is admitted that the best exhibition specimens are pro- 

 duced by the double mating system, which to many seems to be 

 hard to understand, but which in practice is simplicity itself, or 

 if complicated, is no more so than the single mating system, ex- 

 cept that we have two systems to deal with instead of one. By 

 double mating, we in many ways simplify our breeding scheme 

 because we eliminate the problem of balancing the influence of 

 the two sexes as to color, which is the most difficult one involved 

 in the single or standard mating system. The double-mating 

 system is undoubtedly more universally used and understood by 

 breeders of Barred Plymouth Rocks than by those of any other 

 variety. The general principles of this system have been ex- 

 plained in the preceding section and only the special application 

 of these principles to Barred Plymouth Rocks remain to be made 

 clear. 



Double matings are necessary to produce standard colored 

 specimens of both sexes because in any mating, be it according 

 to the single or double mating systems, the males will come 

 several shades lighter than the females, while the Standard, by 

 describing the color of both male and female in exactly the same 

 words, calls for the different sexes to match in the showroom. To 

 accomplish this task very dark matings are used to keep the males 

 dark enough to match the females, and comparatively light 

 matings to produce females light enough to match the males. 



We have a standard description for shape, such that males 

 and females correspond ; that is, males and females of stand- 

 ard shape, when mated together, produce standard shape 

 specimens of both sexes. That this statement is approximately 

 true is proved by the fact that very few breeders make special 

 matings to overcome shape differences in the sexes of any of 

 the Standard breeds and varieties. Barred Plymouth Rocks 

 are no exception to the laws that govern the breeding of other 



