398 POULTRY CULTURE 



but many of the stocks long kept pure have been converted into 

 Buff Plymouth Rocks. 



Transient forms of this type were produced in great abundance 

 and in all colors. Among them the type that first bore the name 

 "Plymouth Rock," made from a mixture of Asiatic and Dorking 

 blood, seems to have been for a short period sufficiently popular 

 to be remembered and to make its reputation something of an 

 asset to the promoters of the modern Plymouth Rock. This early 

 Plymouth Rock had the principal general-purpose-class character- 

 istics, but the color pattern seems to have been indeterminate, a 

 black-red type with no fixed pattern in the female. Many of the 

 birds had five toes, and the legs were of various colors. Consider- 

 ing the popular attitude toward types of fowls, the almost universal 

 practice of crossing (among all poultry keepers except the few breed- 

 ing for definite superficial features), and the numbers of breeders 

 who were seeking to make a type of general-purpose fowl that 

 would meet the general demand, it is highly probable that speci- 

 mens closely approximating or presenting the principal characteris- 

 tics of every one of our modern varieties of this type were produced 

 again and again, and for the most part mingled with the general 

 stock and passed without notice. A few were developed by the 

 breeders who claimed to have discovered them. Occasionally one 

 of these attained some reputation, and perhaps figured in the 

 development of a permanent variety. 



Origin of the Barred Plymouth Rock. About 1864 or 1865 (the 

 date is uncertain) Joseph Spalding, of Putnam, Connnecticut, at the 

 instance of John Giles, of Woodstock in the same state, mated a 

 hawk-colored cock with some Black Cochin (then sometimes called 

 Java) hens. The cross produced cockerels mostly like the sire. 

 The pullets were mostly black or nearly black, but a few were 

 marked like the males. Reverend D. A. Upham, of Wilson ville, 

 Connecticut, saw the birds and with some difficulty persuaded Spald- 

 ing to sell him the best-marked and cleanest-legged cockerel and the 

 two best pullets. From this trio and its progeny Mr. Upham bred 

 for several years. While Spalding and Upham were working with 

 this stock, and before it was introduced to the public, a Mr. Drake, 

 of Stoughton, Massachusetts, had produced birds of the same general 

 type and color by mating hawk-colored females with Asiatic males, 



