152 THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



acceptance. It has size, penciling and form that make it worthy of the name 

 Silver Penciled Plymouth Rock. 



In some of the Rock Mill males we noticed the Dorking comb, but we did not 

 see one that was not solid black in breast and body. In all, we liked the 

 variety, and we speak for it a strong and sure place among the breeds worth while. 



/ 



An early decline. Alas, our prediction has not come true. The 

 last really good exhibit of the variety was made at the New York 

 show, December, 1911, when Frank Davey entered a few good Silver 

 Rocks and won four firsts. These were of the Rock Hill strain, Davey 

 when living at Yonkers, New York, having been intimately acquainted 

 with Corey. 



This wonderful variety is now represented in the leading shows 

 by inferior specimens that look like mere sports of Silver Penciled 

 Wyandottes, whereas so short a time back, the hens weighed eight 

 pounds, the cocks ten pounds, the birds had long bodies, the hens were 

 marvelously penciled and the males wore a top coat of silvery-white 

 color sharply contrasting with a greenish-black breast and tail. Beau- 

 tiful birds they were, in the hands of some of the best breeders of 

 the country, but customers who bought their best blood evidently 

 wasted it. 



It is for these beginners who buy good fowls that this book is 

 written, and to them it is dedicated. If it serves to inspire them with 

 the possibilities of breeding, makes plain that work with Standardbred 

 poultry is a breeding proposition, and helps them to study their birds 

 and think out matings for themselves, it will fulfill its mission. Rules 

 for mating are of little value unless there is first instilled the pride 

 of craftsmanship, and the beginner begins to see his birds, to study 

 them and to use them. The beginner must be taught that to succeed 

 he must put into his work the best that is in .him. 



Breeding good quality. While the present status of the variety 

 makes it harder to secure foundation stock, it need not necessarily 

 discourage any one from taking up the breeding of these fowls, for 

 it is undoubtedly true that a man who cannot build a strain cannot, 

 after buying good birds, maintain their original quality as he breeds 

 them on from year to year. All breeders worthy of the name are 

 constructive, forward-looking, building breeders. Give them birds 

 of health and vigor and they will breed the shape and color. 



An illustrious example of constructive breeding is the case of W. 

 Theo. Wittman, who had only three years with Silver Penciled Plym- 

 outh Rocks, yet in that time bred wonderful fowls from a start with 

 mediocre specimens. The first thing he did was to double mate, and 

 he is frank to confess that the first season's matings were mostly 

 guesswork for as far as he could learn there was no such breeding 

 back of any bird that he secured as foundation material upon which 

 to build. 



The beginner today must duplicate this experience, and by follow- 

 ing Wittman's system of trapnesting each female, toe-marking each 

 chick and carefully watching and studying the development of each 



