A DUAL PURPOSE TYPE 



21 



in relatively good flesh, and if fed for about two weeks make excellent 

 milk-fed poultry. Stations equipped with feeding batteries for approxi- 

 mately twelve to twenty thousand or more fowls at a time are bein^ 

 established over the Middle West and some parts of the South. The 

 feeders are critical of the type of fowls the farmers grow. They want 

 the stock to possess good fleshing qualities, whether young or old. 

 The American breeds arc the favorite with them. 



Grading up the size of the farm stock through the use of purebred 

 Plymouth Rock males. It is not exaggeration to say that the farm 

 fowls of the country owe much of their size to the Barred Plymouth 

 Rock. With a view to showing the breeding value of a purebred 

 Plymouth Rock male when introduced into a flock of nondescript, 



Grade Barred Plymouth Rocks. Three generations removed from mongrels. 

 This pair is the result of grading up through the use of Purebred Barred Plymouth 

 Rock sires on the poultry farm of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



mongrel hens, an experiment was conducted on the Government 

 Poultry F'rm at Beltsville, Maryland, by Harry M. Lamon, senior 

 poultryman. United States Department of Agriculture, and Robert D. 

 Slocum, assistant in charge. Some typical dunghill hens that had 

 come from the farms of Maryland and Virginia were purchased in 

 the Washington market. 



A Barred Plymouth Rock male was placed in the first pen. He 

 was of Standard size and conformation. The pullets from him when 

 full grown weighed S.63 pounds each, or one pound six ounces more 

 than their mongrel dams. The next year these grade pullets were 

 also bred to a pure Barred Rock male, and this union produced pullel.s 

 weighing an average of 6.22 pounds each. In other words, the use of 

 purebred sires for two generations had brought the pullets up to 

 Standard weights. All weights were taken as of March 1, 



