OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS 



While the masses of poultry keepers were thus crossing new 

 and old stock at random, many breeders were trying systemati- 

 cally to produce a new breed that would meet all the popular 

 requirements. Even before the days of the hen fever two local 

 breeds had arisen, probably by accident. These were the Jersey 

 Blue and the Bucks County Fowl, both of which continued 

 down to our own time but never became popular. At the first 



exhibition in Boston a class had 

 been provided for crossbred 

 fowls, and in this was shown a 

 new variety called the Plymouth 

 Rock. From the descriptions of 

 these birds now in existence 

 it appears that they looked 

 much like the modern Partridge 

 Plymouth Rock. Those who 

 brought them out hoped that 

 they would meet the popular 

 demand, and for a short time 

 it seemed that this hope might 

 be realized, but interest in them 

 soon waned, and in a few years 

 they were almost forgotten. 

 In the light of the history of American breeds which did 

 afterwards become popular we can see now that the ideas of the 

 masses of American poultry keepers were not as strictly practi- 

 cal as their objections to the various foreign breeds appeared to 

 show. The three varieties that have just been mentioned, and 

 many others arising from time to time, met all the expressed re- 

 quirements of the practical poultry keeper quite as well as those 

 which subsequently caught his fancy. Indeed, as will be shown 

 farther on, some of the productions of this period, after being 

 neglected for a long time, finally became very popular. Usually 

 this happened when their color became fashionable. 



FIG. 45. White Plymouth Rock hen 



(Photograph from C. E. Hodgkins, 



Northampton, Massachusetts) 



