32 Barred and White Plymouth Rocks. 



It is best at all times to buy fowls from reliable breeders, not 

 necessarily from those who have grown gray in the business, but 

 from those who are honest in their dealings and always willing to 

 make just amends for any errors of judgment or something unlooked 

 for in the sale of eggs or stock. There are more opportunities for 

 cheating in the poultry business than in any other, and there are 

 more opportunities for those who sell eggs and fowls to show hon- 

 esty of purpose, to show one of the highest of God's attributes to 

 man, to show a heroic resolve to follow the Golden Rule. " You 

 have my honest and hard-earned money. I sent it with implicit con- 

 fidence, relying on your honesty; and though a stranger to me only 

 in name, I trust that you will send full value for it." Here is implicit 

 confidence in the honesty of a stranger, and the one who' would be- 

 tray that confidence, and send in return for the good money in his 

 pocket something nominally valueless or something not near its value, 

 if done knowingly and purposely, that man is dishonest and should 

 not be trusted nor recognized in the circle of poultry breeders. 



No doubt there will be many who will complain of being cheated 

 in their purchases of White Plymouth Rock eggs and fowls, or that 

 they have not received full value for the amount paid. Our advice 

 in this case is, for the breeder not to sell eggs or fowls from impure 

 stock, and if the amount is not equivalent to the value of the stock, 

 taking its popularity, ready sale and rarity into consideration, return 

 the money or state the case, and request the full value for the bird 

 or birds you have to sell. Do not send out poor specimens at any 

 price; they will eventually kill your business and name as a breeder. 



There is no moral law to prevent unprincipled breeders from 

 selling poor stock or selling impure for pure stock. But, at the same 

 time, the purchaser of a setting of White Plymouth Rock eggs or of 

 fowls should not expect to get all prime birds, though he may have 

 paid a good price for them. In a setting of eggs the chicks may 

 not all come pure white, but if three-fourths of them come true, there 

 is no just ground for complaint; for, as we have stated before, there 

 will be more or less "off-colored " birds in the breed for some time 

 to come, and when the buyer is forewarned and the cause fully and 

 sensibly explained to him, he takes his own risk and has no reason 

 to complain afterwards. 



There are those who publicly assert that their strains of White 

 Plymouth Rocks breed true to name. They do in the general ac- 

 ceptation of the term. The same is said of Silver Wyandottes, and 

 once in a while some come with single combs and others with feath- 



