LEADING STANDARD VARIETIES 



AMERICAN BREEDS 



Popular size, beauty and utility combined, that describes 

 the American varieties as a whole. Good for eggs and meat — 

 the real general or all purpose fowls. Yet withal they rank 

 among the best and most popular exhibition varieties. They 

 fill the largest classes at our shows, draw some of the longest 

 prices from our purses and make their breeders happy whether 

 bred for show-room or the market place. Being to the manor 

 bom, originally produced and developed in the United States, 

 they appeal to the patriotic spirit as well as the senses, not the 

 least among these last being "common sense." Beautiful, 

 hardy, vigorous, active, foremost in the show-room and also 

 in appeasing our appetites for prime quality poultry and eggs 

 they have never yet given their originators and breeders the 

 least cause to be ashamed of them. Plymouth Rocks, Wyan- 

 dottes or Rhode Island Reds, all of the old varieties and most 

 of the new ones are popular in the best sense of the word and 

 deservedly so. These varieties are all hardy, stand confinement 

 well, are good foragers on range, are easily confined, a five-foot 

 wire fence will keep them within bounds. Excellent sitters, 

 fine mothers and unequalled producers of good sized brown eggs. 

 Good market size, mature early, fine flavored soft juicy fiesh, 

 easily fatted, yellow skin and clean yellow legs; these are a few 

 of the sterling qualities of the leading American varieties. 



BARRED PLYMOUTH ROCKS 



WHY THEY ARE IDEAL FOWLS FOR THE FANCIER— 

 THEY COMBINE ARTISTIC BEAUTY AND UTILITY 



E. B. THOMPSON, Amenia, N. Y. 



SPECIALIST BREEDER OF BARRED PLYMOUTH ROCKS 



The reasons for my preference for the Barred Plymouth 

 Rock over all other breeds is simple and easy to tell. 



feome 28 years ago as a boy I concluded to commence with 

 one single breed and only one and bring it to the highest possible 

 perfection. After much thinking I finally arrived at the con- 

 clusion tliat the Barred Plymouth Rock was the ideal breed. 



In the first place they are a practical fowl, they are a utility 

 bird, and these things are absolutely necessary in any breed of 

 poultry if a large demand and great popularity is expected. 

 The Barred Rocks are splendid layers the year round. In fact, 

 I have testimonials from my customers stating almost wonder- 

 ful laying records by my "Ringlets." 



The Barred Rock is a good sized bird with yellow skin and 

 ' legs and a quick grower. On account of this fact they are 

 largely bred for broiler and market purposes, the foundation 

 being utility and practical worth — the same as a large beautiful 

 and ornate building must stand upon a deep, solid and practical 

 foundation. 



The principal reason for my choosing the Barred Rock for 

 my life's work is their wonderful plumage. The exquisite color 

 of a fine exhibition specimen can hardly be told in words and ' 

 to produce the clean, bright, narrow, straight barring year after 

 year is a fascinating study and worthy of the highest skill in 

 live stock breeding. In point of fact, a great breed with the 

 superlative quahties of the Barred Rock must be in universal 

 demand and have a tremendous sale. 



Since I originated the "Ringlet" strain and during aU the 

 years I have bred them the demand has been enormous for breed- 

 ing and exhibition birds, not only in this country but in foreign 

 lands. I have shipped them aU over the world, and during the 

 past two months have sent "Ringlets" to Australia, Japan, 

 South America, South Africa, Germany, England and Russia. 



The kind of poultry to breed and spend time, money and 

 labor on is the breed the majority of the people want and I have 

 found the "Ringlet" Barred Rooks have a popularity unprece- 

 dented. This popularity could not exist without actual merit 

 and worth. 



To sum up the Barred Rock is a business fowl with exqui- 

 site feathers and plumage. They meet aUke all the require- 

 ments of the market poultryman and the bom fancier whose 

 solitary purpose is to own a breed for exhibition in the largest 

 shows where competition will be the fiercest. The prices paid 

 for superior exhibition and prize winning specimens are very 

 large and the Barred Rock class usually exceeds all other breeds 

 in niuibers at the leading shows. This fact is further convincing 

 evidence of the popularity of the breed — ^they have been called 

 "America's Idol." 



The coloring of an exhibition Barred Rock and the artistic 

 beauty of a perfectly barred feather is a delight to a fancier and 

 the best poultry artists in the country must acknowledge that 

 when they have correctly portrayed on the canvass one of the 

 highest types of a Barred Rock they have reached the climax 

 of skill in poultry illustrating. 



POPULAR PLYMOUTH ROCKS 



r^ - The Barred Plymouth Rocks are one of the oldest and most 

 popular of the American varieties. You wiU find birds showing 

 Barred Rock feathering in nearly every farm flock in the country. 

 Wherever a male of this breed has once been used he leaves his 

 trademark of plumage to follow on indefinitely in the progeny. 

 This breed was originally produced by mating a good old-fashion- 

 ed Dominique male with Black Java females. 



Thef beautiful barred plumage of standard-bred birds of 

 this variety is too well known to need description here and is 

 best seen in the exhibition pen to appreciate it at its full value. 



To produce exhibition specimens of highest excellence all 

 breeders of this variety find it necessary to resort to the double 

 mating system; one special mating to produce male birds with 

 exhibition markings, shape and size, and another to produce 

 females with like requirements. The Barred Plymouth. Rock 

 fancier finds that he has his hands full in endeavoring to produce 

 fancy specimens of highest excellence. When he succeeds he 

 wins high honors in the show room in the hottest kind of com- 

 petition, and he can usually command any price within the 

 bounds of reason that he may care to ask. It frequently happens 

 too that he does not care to sell at any price. 



Mr. A. C. Hawkins, Lancaster, Mass., poultry judge and 

 breeder, writes of the Barred Rocks as follows: 



"Many of the judges have become so thoroughly carried 

 away with the under barring that they pay little attention to 

 the beauty of the surface color. They begin to score from the 

 skin and cut more severely for lack of under-color than for an 

 inferior surface. The beauty of a fowl is what we see, and 

 while I am a beUever in distinct, even barring under the surface, 

 I do not want the bars so strong and heavy underneath that 

 they destroy the beautiful blue on the surface, and it is a fact 

 that most of the specimens that are very strong in under-color 

 have a muddy black bar on the surface. It is also a fact that 

 the very finest surface colored birds have not the strongest 

 under-color. The two quahties do not breed together, naturally, 

 or, in other words, those males that are most attractive in the 

 breedii.g yard and exhibition pen may not have the same strength 

 in the under-barring as other specimens that are less attractive. 



"Now, breeders, which will you have? What I want, and 

 what any real fancier wants, is perfection in surface color and 

 all the under-barring that nature will supply with it, and not 

 what some judges I know require, namely, perfection in under- 

 barring and as good surface as we can get with it. 



71 



