150 THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



By 1904, Crocker had bred his stock so that it was one-fourth the 

 blood of the Adams Dark Brahma male, free from feathers on shanks, 

 and his best cockerel that year produced specimens that showed no 

 conspicuous trace of the Partridge tendency to red in the plumage. 



Others had taken up the breeding of Silver Penciled Rocks by this 

 time, and Crocker in the October, 1904, issue of Poultry Tribune 

 stated that his was "the lirst and original strain bred in connection 

 with the Cornell and Brackenbury stock, and 1 know of no strains 

 today of Partridge or Silver Plymouth Rocks but what received help, 

 either directly or indirectly from the Cornell-Brackenbury stock." 



Other breeders at work. Cornell presented some of his Silver 

 Penciled Wyandottes to T. F. McGrew and they were kept at Elm- 

 wood Farm, Weston, N. J. From this stock, McGrew bred Elmwood 

 Queen in 1901. She was a big Wyandotte female of excellent pencil- 

 ing and plainly showed the Brahma shape (page 226). Some of the 

 other pullets from the same breeding carried single combs which is a 

 breed characteristic of the Plymouth Rock. 



McGrew held on to these single comb sports, and later secured 

 from Dennis Shey who was pouitryman for E. G. Wyckoff, Ithaca, 

 New York, into whose hands the Cornell stock had passed upon the 

 death of Ezra Cornell in 1902, a trio of single comb Silver Penciled 

 Wyandottes. These with the pullets McGrew had made a pen of 

 eight or ten birds and were bred by him for three years. 



This stock as bred, culled and developed by McGrew then passed 

 into the hands of James Forsyth, Oswego, New York, and when 

 F. E. Corey, who was pouitryman for Forsyth left that position to 

 assume management of Gen. McAlpine's Rock Hill Poultry Farm. 

 Ossining, New York, he took the entire flock of Silver Penciled Rocks 

 with him. 



At the New York show of December, 1907, there was a splendid 

 class of forty-five Silver Rocks and Rock Flill Farm won 1-4 cock; 

 1-2 hen; 1-2 cockerel; 1-3 pullet; 1 pen. The following year at New 

 York this farm again won all the firsts and in commenting on the 

 Madison Square Garden exhibition of that year, we wrote: 



Silver Rocks. This, to us, was the most pleasing new breed in the show. The 

 first cock had good striping in hackle and saddle, black breast, white wing bows, 

 good head, excellent wing, strong undercolor. There was less yellow (less Partridge 

 influence) in the surface color of the 2d hen than in the surface color of the 1st, 

 but 1st had a good breast and throat. First cockerel a jim-dandy in every way, with 

 laced coverts over his tail like a Light Brahma. 



A third cross. In addition to the Crocker and McGrew sources 

 of origin, there was a third, and the Rock Hill birds had certain out- 

 ward signs of possessing some of this third foundation blood in their 

 veins. It is well authenticated that a third party worked along origi- 

 nal lines and made Silver Penciled Plymouth Rocks by combining 

 the blood of the Dark Brahma, Silver Grey Dorking and Mottled 

 Java. Stock of this breeding was secured by W. Theo. Wittman, 

 Allentown, Pennsylvania, when Wittman of his own volition gave 



