WHITE PLYMOUTH ROCKS 133 



White Rocks have also been spoken of as albinos, that is, pure 

 Barred Plymouth Rocks in which the color has failed, due to pigment 

 not being secreted in a normal way. There is therefore, a difference 

 between an albino and a white sport, the latter indicating, in this 

 case, that the visible barred character of the Essex strain was not 

 their total possession, and that inheritance was not limited to this 

 somatically visible barring alone; and that some of the descendants 

 inherited the white plumage which had been introduced into the family 

 of which they were a member. 



At the Bangor (Maine) show of 1876 at which Frost exhibited his 

 White Plymouth Rocks, I. K. Felch officiated as judge. He states 

 that: 



A trio of these White Rocks were offered to me, but I foolishly declined to 

 accept them. However, I advised Mr. Frost to continue to breed them, for, as I 

 told him, he would have no trouble with the color. These are the fowls which waded 

 through deep mire in subsequent years, before they were admitted to the Standard 

 and their good qualities became known, and the variety accepted by fanciers. The 

 Barred and the Whites are the only Plymouth Rocks of absolute purity of Plymouth 

 Rock blood. 



Other sources of origin. Rev. John Hughes of Table Grove, Illi- 

 nois, who was a prominent breeder of the variety from 1890 to about 

 1900, claimed superiority for the White Plymouth Rock as a separate 

 variety and not because of its relationship to the Barred Rock. From 

 a close study of his own stock he had come to the conclusion that the 

 birds were not direct in line from sports of the barred variety, and 

 that alien blood had been introduced. On this point he wrote in the 

 summer of 1901, as follows: 



I do not doubt their relationship to the Barred variety, but question their full 

 relationship. The faulty combs which have taken so many years to bring to full 

 perfection testify very plainly of a mixture of White Leghorn blood, and of the 

 origin of their superior laying qualities. The feathers on their legs, equally hard 

 to eradicate, speak also of a mixture of the Light Brahma or White Cochin blood 

 for size. This happily has been accomplished, and they breed as true to require- 

 ments now as any other breed, and they are substantially fixed as to type. 



This is telling the truth, as I view it, as to their origin, and as I believe It 

 ought to be told. It is a made breed and must stand on its own merit or go down 

 as unworthy of its place. Tt cannot rest on borrowed plunies, nor maintain popu- 

 larity because it is a "sport" of another breed. In what is a "sport" better than 

 the original? 



This view of origin was not held by John Landis of Edinburg, 

 Indiana, who took up the variety in 1894, and brecl many winners at 

 Chicago and Indianapolis, entering some of his birds as recently as 

 the Chicago show of December, 1919. Landis wrote in 1904 that 

 while much had been written in regard to the origin of the variety, 

 and different breeds named as having been used in a cross to bring 

 about the desired results, the fact was that "the Simon-pure White 

 Rocks of today are albino-sports of the Barred variety," and "the 

 birds that have made names and fame for their owners are pure 

 Plymouth Rocks and owe their origin to some of the extreme matings 

 in the Barred variety." 



