Introduction, 



The popularity and sterling merits of the Barred and White 

 Plymouth Rock fowls, amidst the past and present booms on new 

 breeds, have evoked such a vast and increasing interest in standard 

 and commercial foultry culture, as to merit a special treatise at our hands. 

 The magnitude of the poultry interest at home and abroad, the 

 evolution of new breeds to meet the demands of popular taste, and 

 elevate the character of our native fowls for table use, have stimu- 

 lated the inborn skill and genius of our fanciers to new efforts, who 

 can now look with supreme pride and exultation to those grand and 

 useful breeds they have evolved and given to the world, which stand 

 to-day, vast and imperishable monuments to their originality, skill 

 and enterprise. 



The interest manifested in the Barred Plymouth Rock breed, 

 the " first born " of native skill, is only equaled by the birth of its 

 first cousin in spotless robes of white. These matchless cousins are 

 America's grandest and proudest triumphs, and while they hold the 

 post of honor for comeliness and utility, we must accord to their 

 new rivals all the merits to which they are justly entitled. 



In presenting this book on Barred and White Plymouth Rock 

 fowls to the public, and in view of the excellent small works already 

 written on the barred or gray breed, we do not claim for our work supe- 

 rior merits. But those monographs were written when the breed was 

 in a state of transition, when there was no White Plymouth Rock to 

 assert its equality and independent variation from the parent stock, 

 and when poultry culture was in its early stages of growth. Since 

 then many changes have been made in the character and scope of 



