PLYMOUTH ROCK STANDARD AND BREED BOOK 231 



Silver-gray, which appears in the tail, would seem to be an ad- 

 mixture of a little black with considerable white, or, perhaps, 

 some buff, comparable perhaps to the production of blue plum- 

 age sometimes, sometimes a black and a w.hite mottled plumage 

 by the crossing of white and black birds. The Buff Cochin is the 

 source from which all buff varieties obtained their color and to 

 the color defects inherited from other varieties that were not 

 buff used in creating the Buff Plymouth Rocks must be added 

 the defects of the Buff Cochins, employed in the various crosses. 



CHAPTER III. 



MATING TO PRODUCE BUFF PLUMAGE 



Buff is classed as one of the solid colors, to produce which 

 breeders seldom employ more than one mating. In the earlier 

 history of this variety, perhaps fifteen years or more ago, double 

 mating was practiced. 



Early System of Mating. We find in the early treatises on 

 breeding buff varieties that advice as to how to double mate for 

 buff color conforms closely to our ideas of double mating today. 

 Nowadays, little double mating is done to produce buff or any 

 solid color. Double mating for buff was excusable and perhaps 

 advisable in those days, because of the unsettled condition of the 

 buff variety, their composite character and short existence, to 

 overcome several glaring faults, such as dark neck, dark or red 

 shoulders, black in tails and black in wings, wings and tails in 

 which white was prominent, a wide difference in color of top and 

 lower sections, and also a wide difference in color of males and 

 females. The early breeders had to contend with these and other 

 faults and to breed them out ; and then undercolor was more im- 

 portant in the eyes of the judge and breeder than now." Is it any 

 wonder that these early breeders adopted the quick method of 

 correcting one defect by using its antidote a defect of opposite 

 character to counteract it, and of trying to correct in one sex at 

 a time; as, for instance, attempting to produce sound surface 

 and strong undercolor on the females by breeding males alto- 

 gether too strong in color, especially in the shoulders and back ? 

 Such males were even then useless as show birds because of 

 these dark or red sections and the unevenness of the color of 



