SILVER PENCILED PLYMOUTH ROCKS 153 



specimen from the day it is hatched until it reaches maturity, he can 

 make an analysis of breeding tendencies that will enable him to 

 make good molds for his second season's chicks. Wittman did this 

 "and it helped me to find my way for the second season's mating." 



While he bred the variety for only three years, at the end of 

 that time his birds were running very uniform, and his flock, con- 

 sisting of about ten cockerels and forty pullets, had such good size, 

 clear-cut markings, and good Plymouth Rock type that the manager 

 of a large poultry farm was so attracted to them that he bought the 

 entire lot. 



Mating Silver Penciled Plymouth Rocks. There is but one simple 

 way to breed this variety. That is to mate together the first year 

 the best birds that you can acquire. Be sure that the male is free 

 from red, that he is silvery white on wing-bows, of good size and in 

 robust health. Find three or four females that are large and long 

 bodied with their backs as free from yellow-tinge as possible. Mate 

 these birds together. This is mating A. 



Set all the eggs from this mating, pedigree the chicks and grow 

 them out successfully. The second season, select two to four pullets 

 produced by mating A, that have striped, not penciled hackles, and 

 whose back feathers are dotted with black in the penciling'. Their 

 shanks and toes should be a dusky yellow; tail, black to the roots, 

 and wing primaries and secondaries of strong color. Mate these pul- 

 lets to the finest exhibition cockerel produced by mating A. This 

 mating now forms pen I and is a foundation on which you can produce 

 very superior cockerels. 



Also select from the pullets produced by mating A, the two best 

 colored pullets, birds that are big and the most distinctly penciled 

 with black or white in their wing bows and back plumage of all the 

 pullets that you grew. Select to mate to them a cockerel whose dam 

 was the best penciled hen in mating A, and a cockerel that as a chick- 

 showed some penciling in his first crop of feathers, commonly called 

 chick feathers. This mating is a foundation on which to proceed in 

 the breeding of fine females. This is mating No. 2. 



From matings 1 and 2 you are able to produce in the third genera- 

 tion cockerels from the first and pullets from the second that arc so 

 far superior to those that you started with and which formed mating 

 A, that you will astound yourself and your friends who are watching 

 your work. 



It is commonly held, and unfortunately for progress in breeding, 

 that the easiest way to mate is to make mating A and then proceed 

 by breeding the best to the best. This single or Standard mating is 

 the most difficult way to breed. The easy way to breed, and the one 

 way certain to make rapid improvement, is to split the line into two 

 parts, one for the production of cockerels, the other for the produc- 

 tion of pullets. We believe in the theory of single or Standard mat- 

 ing; we wish that all breeders who sell stock produced them by the 



