PLYMOUTH ROCK STANDARD AND BREED BOOK 165 



of each individual female upon the color of the progeny is not 

 nearly as necessary as when the single or standard mating is 

 used. Further than that, we may rely upon the quality of the 

 males very largely to determine the quality of the male progeny. 

 Outside of her ancestry, the appearance of the female of the 

 male line as to plumage becomes of secondary importance under 

 the double-mating system ; exactly so with the male of the ex- 

 hibition female line. 



These principles and facts must be ever coupled with tho^e 

 one step in advance, namely the higher the quality of the par- 

 ents, the higher that of the offspring; other things, of course, 

 being equal ; the more generations that quality has been main- 

 tained, the more certain and often it will reproduce itse'.f. 



Special Matings an Old and Established Institution. Double- 

 mating could be and should be called "special mating," because 

 this term indicates accurately just what it is designed to be and 

 should be. Double-matings are special matings for each sex. 

 As such they become old and established institutions, as long 

 before the term "double-mating" was used, special matings to 

 overcome the difficulty of breeding males and females of the 

 same shade were employed. Descriptions of such matings are 

 found in most, if not all, th'e works on Plymouth Rocks. 



The stage to which thought upon this question had ad- 

 vanced at this time (1880) is very well illuminated by Stoddard 

 in the following paragraphs : 



* * * That the breed will ever arrive at that stage where 

 the males will be naturally produced as dark as the females 

 we very much doubt and till that time arrives we must make 

 the best of things as we find them, and at the same time try 

 to bring about that state of things as well as we know how. 



"At present and ever since the breed was known the males 

 have 'run light' and the hens dark. That is, in every yard of 

 Plymouth Rocks the fowls are found varying in color, both 

 cocks and hens. Among the former a very few are what would 

 be called dark, a considerable number medium, and a large num- 

 ber light, or very light, so that they may be called light as a 

 rule. The hens are in greatly preponderating numbers, very 

 dark, a few lighter and a veiy few what may be called light, or 

 about the same as a dark-medium cockerel. 



"These light pullets and dark-medium cockerels match in 

 the pen, and from them are selected the exhibition birds. They 



