26 FARMING IT 



ters, and easily tamed, and the handsomest fowl 

 in existence. 



Indeed, the number of breeds had so greatly 

 increased, and their names were so unfamiliar, 

 that I was for a long time as one wandering in a 

 foreign land. I looked in vain for Bolton Grays 

 and Rocky Mountains, the two breeds the most 

 favored when I was a boy ; I could not find them. 



Instead, I found various varieties of Wyan- 

 dottes, Langshans, Minorcas, Orpingtons, Sicilian 

 Buttercups, Rhode Island Reds, Anconas, Fa- 

 verolles, and others, of which I had never heard. 

 I doubt if Rip van Winkle on awakening from his 

 long sleep on the mountains was more bewildered 

 than I was after my first hour with a poultry 

 journal. 



The journal was full of cuts and photographs 

 of noble-looking but strange fowl, and of exten- 

 sive poultry plants, which both convinced and 

 astonished me at the magnitude of the business. 



I also learned that the Hon. R. Cuthbert 

 Jenkins had purchased of Lady the Honorable 

 Letitia Jane Cholmondeley her entire stock and 

 all rights in her famous strain of Jubilee Orping- 

 tons, which amazed me intensely. But where 

 were the Bolton Grays, and what had become 

 of the Rocky Mountain fowl ? Could they have 

 utterly perished from the earth like the auk and 

 the bustard ? It seemed scarcely possible. The 



