PLYMOUTH ROCK STANDARD AND BREED BOOK 271 



by taking Partridge Wyandotte Sports, the path might have 

 been temporarily strewn with roses at many places where there 

 were thorns only, but in that event we would not have had the 

 true Partridge Rock today." 



THE EASTERN STRAINS 



While this new variety was being developed as related above 

 in the West, Indiana being regarded in New England and New 

 York as the West, in consequence of which the Noftzger strain 

 is known in the East as the Western strain, it was also under- 

 going the ordeals of a formative period in the eastern states, 

 New York and Pennsylvania surely, if not in others. 



George H. Brackenbury of Auburn, N. Y., who was so 

 prominent in the origin and development of the Partridge and 

 Silver-Penciled Wyandottes, in the American Fancier of Janu- 

 ary, 1900-1901, credits E. O. Thiem with being the first to 

 breed this variety, but states that he had some time before 

 discontinued and gives real credit to Dr. W. C. Crocker of 

 Foxboro, Mass., with being the first to establish a true strain of 

 Partridge Plymouth Rocks. W. F. Fotterall, the owner of 

 Hillcrest Farm, also credits the same party, but states that 

 the first he ever saw were shown by R. G. Bluffington of Fall 

 River, Mass. Mr. Buffington's name appears in other pages 

 of this work as one of the originators of early breeders oi 

 Buff Plymouth Rocks. Originating or developing a new 

 variety was a constant occupation of Mr. Buffington's through- 

 out life. 



The Dr. Crocker referred to relates his experience in the 

 Poultry Tribune of 1904. From this it appears that he had 

 bred Partridge Cochins in the early seventies, 1870, and while 

 he admired their plumage, he came to the conclusion that he 

 wanted an up-to-date American fowl and formed a conception 

 of his ideal. As he told it, "It was one with the beautiful plum- 

 age of the Partridge Cochins, but without feathers on the shank 

 to be draggled in the mud and filth, and second, my ideal fowl 

 must be an active, up-to-date, wide-awake American fowl, and 

 not so lazy that it had to be put to bed on the roost everv 

 night." 



"For some years I dropped the poultry subject, but in 1899 

 I again took up the matter, and this time determined to make 

 what I wanted. For this purpose I procured a trio of Partridge 



