22 SPECKLED DORKINGS. 



Quoting from Mr. L. F. Allen, you give us " the whole story in a 

 nut-shell." " The Dorking fowls are no better than the well selected 

 common fowls of our own country, in any respect, except their fine, 

 full, compact, broad bodies, as an article of food for that they exceed 

 any other fowls I ever saw ; they are tender, do not lay so well, and 

 are less prolific than the others." You say, " the authority, the best 

 in .the country." He gives the bird the credit of exceeding all others 

 for the table that, surely, is one great point. Now let us see what 

 this same authority [Mr. L. F. Allen] says in the American Agricul- 

 txirist, some time after his importation in 1841: "They are most 

 excellent layers, good and steady setters, and kind, careful nurses." 

 " The young have proved very hardy and easy to rear. The males, 

 of which I imported two, are large, strong birds, and the hens are all 

 I could desire of them. Their eggs are of a large size, clear, white 

 and excellent in quality. Although in the depth of winter, with over 

 a foot of snow on the ground, the hens lay daily, running out in the 

 severest cold." 



Now, Mr. Editor, you would hardly think that the above quotations 

 were from the same pen, describing the same bird. Ten years' breed- 

 ing should have improved, not degenerated the stock, particularly in 

 the hands of an eminent breeder. I am happy to say, that Dorkings, 

 as described, with all the good qualities that can be combined in one 

 bird, viz : beauty, strength, fine flesh, good layers, and hardy, can be 

 found in this country. I have no doubt but that Mr. Allen gives a 

 full description of the Dorkings as they appeared to him at the differ- 

 ent times he was writing. But how great a change has ten years 

 made in the bird itself 1 The Dorkings imported by him, and their 

 immediate descendants, instead of being about as perfect and desira- 

 ble a breed of fowls as a man could have in his yard, Mr. Allen now 

 describes as a breed of one virtue only, and coupled with so many 

 serious faults, that, if true, no person breeding for profit or pleasure, 

 would desire them. 



So far from being tender, I have, the past winter, with the mercury 

 standing at one time at 36 below zero, watched three or four 

 yards containing pure Dorking fowls, with no protection but a half 

 open shed, that have been as well, and began laying as early, as the 

 most hardy breeds. Last winter, I saw a coop of brown Dorking 

 fowls on their way, and addressed to Mr. V. Cornish of Hartford, 

 Conn., and I thought they looked rather better than anything I ever 

 saw at the State Fairs, or at the shows of poultry in Boston. Per- 

 haps Mr. Cornish might be willing to give your readers the history of 

 his Dorkings, and some of his ideas as to their qualities. [Communi- 

 cations are solicited for the Northern Farmer. ED.] 



The fact is, Mr. Editor, the pure Dorkings, when attention is paid 

 to their breeding by the introduction of a fresh strain of blood often 

 enough, are all that Mr. Allen described in 1841, and their merits 

 have only to be known to make the public as much their friend as 

 your correspondent. 



COCKEREL. 



It is a fact, that Mr. Allen did, in 1841, write in the Ameri- 

 can Agriculturist, what he virtually contradicts in 1851 



