122 



THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



have won so continuously over so long a period at a pie-eminent 

 American show. 



Thompson's greatest achievement in breeding has been in produc- 

 ing straight-across-the-feather barring. This straightness of barring 

 results in the bars on the individual feathers linking up with one 

 another and producing rings around the birds. The result is the ring- 

 let effect which is characteristic of his strain and makes them in fact 

 as well as in name "Ringlets." And, in getting straight bars, he 

 has been equally successful in producing light and dark bars of equal 

 width. Added to straight, evenly spaced barring, he has a bright, 

 clean surface color and an underbarring that is consistent with this 

 surface color. If the beginner will study this one paragraph, he will 



Feathers from an exhibition Barred Plymouth Rock, owned by 

 W. D. Holterman, Fort Wayne, Ind. 



acquire the fundamentals of a liberal knowledge of correct Barred 

 Plymouth Rock color. 



The Thompson business of selling high-grade Barred Plymouth 

 Rock fowls and eggs for hatching has been built up from a small 

 beginning. The visitor to th'e farm today may sit in the palatial 

 residence and look across the valley to the hills on yonder side. Back 

 in those hills was the first Thompson farm, and it was from there, 

 in the early eighties, that this breeder shipped his first pair of Barred 

 Plymouth Rocks to the New York show. He didn't have money 

 enough to go down himself, and the pair of birds were lost and never 

 got back home. In the light of present-day quality, they were not 

 worth returning home. 



