110 THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



trace the specific origin of this color type. There is no record as to 

 when barring first appeared in domestic fowl, or how it came to hap- 

 pen. While a barred bird may today be made by certain crosses of 

 whites and blacks, it is the result of one of the parent birds carrying 

 the barred pattern in hereditary form without it being somatically 

 visible. 



Unquestionably the early Dominiques were largely of English 

 Dorking origin, perhaps with some Scotch Gray blood in them. The 

 birds were very wide barred, the bars were not straight nor the dark 

 bar a sharp contrast to the light bar. When a male of this color type 

 was crossed onto Black Cochin females, the result was a number of 

 barred cockerels, some barred pullets and some black ones. The 

 black of the Cochin added intensity to the color, and the inheritance 

 of pattern from the male determined the position that that color was 

 to take up on the feather. 



Barring comes lighter in the male than in the female. As years 

 have passed, and the Barred Plymouth Rock has been carefully 

 selected and bred, the factor for barring has become fixed. In 1912. 

 Dr. Raymond Pearl wrote: "Such a thing as a completely non-barred 

 bird appearing in any 'pure strain' of Barred Plymouth Rocks no 

 longer occurs and has not for a number of years." 



The tendency persists, however, for Barred Plymouth Rock males 

 to come lighter than the females. This has been attributed to the 

 early crosses in which the male Dominique was crossed on Black 

 Cochins. The biggest problem in the history of the variety has been 

 how to overcome this natural tendency. After the World's Fair in 

 Chicago, 1893, 'Sid Conger of Shelbyville, Ind., who had been the 

 leading winner, discussed with his friend, B. N. Pierce of Indian- 

 apolis, who was the leading western poultry judge at that time, how 

 to remake the variety and produce a line of Barred Rocks that would 

 yield cockerels and pullets of the same shade of color. Mr. Pierce 

 took up the matter with Henry Turck of Middletown, Ohio, a lead- 

 ing Black Java breeder of the day. By this time, the modern Black 

 Java, with its clean legs, was an established fact. 



Mr. Turck, acting on the suggestion, made a cross just opposite 

 to the original crosses, using a Black Java male on a bare-foot Light 

 Brahma female. A cockerel and pullet of this cross were then bred 

 together; and the pullets produced were bred back to their grand- 

 sire, the original Black Java male. The result was a dark barred male. 

 However, no permanent results accrued. 



The fact of the matter is that no matter how dark you get a 

 Barred Rock male, his mother and sisters are darker. The male is 

 always "more barred" than the female and this strong dose of barring 

 takes the form of wide open white bars. In the female the barring is 

 of less degree, almost down to no space at all in some individuals, 

 and, in the early days, black pullets altogether devoid of white bar- 

 ring were more or less common. The greater barring of white in 



