112 THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



tated the making of another mating to produce exhibition pullets. On 

 this double mating he wrote: "the trouble and annoyance of being 

 obliged to have two different styles of mating is obvious to anyone, 

 and it utterly befogs amateurs." 



Corbin believed that mating No. 5 was correct and that it should 

 be the same as No. 4, that is, No. 4, which consisted of "birds match- 

 ing in the show pen," should mean medium colored females matched 

 with a male two shades lighter in color. He maintained that judges 

 should be liberal in their construction of the Standard color and allow 

 that latitude in shade of color between the two sexes necessary for 

 breeding purposes. However, he did not recommend a light male 

 mated to dark females, mating No. 1, for although he said that it 

 was urged by many as the proper one, it should be resorted to only 

 in case of necessity. 



Corbin was a single mater. He wanted the judges not only to 

 recognize the medium colored female as Standard but the male two 

 shades lighter which was required to produce her. However, the 

 tendency persisted that exhibition Barred Plymouth Rocks should be 

 of the same shade of color. 



In 1880, H. H. Stoddard, editor of the Poultry World, wrote: 



That the breed will ever arrive at that stage where the males will naturally be 

 produced as dark as the females, we very much doubt. At present and ever since 

 tlie breed was known, the males have run Hglit and the hens dark. Can the Plymouth 

 Rocks be so changed by breeding as to approximate, and finally draw together? 



Stoddard then proceeded to outline a system of breeding by defin- 

 ing a mating to produce exhibition cockerels, and another mating to 

 produce exhibition pullets. He also held to an intermediate mating 

 to produce both Standard cockerels and pullets. 



A new generation of great breeders appear upon the scene. Such 

 was the state of knowledge when what were to become the greatest 

 breeders of America, began to take their first interest in Barred 

 Plymouth Rocks. Among this illustrious group of breeders stands the 

 name of Edward B. Thompson. Amenia, New York, who, in the 

 early days of February. 1879, while yet a schoolboy, made his first 

 purchase from Virgil Oilman, and began his career as a breeder of 

 Barred Plymouth Rocks. Seven years before Oilman had paid Drake 

 $20 for a pair, and later, to get away from the Drake tendency to 

 very large, coarse birds, had bought into Mark Pitman's line which 

 was producing more of a medium type of fowl. 



In 1879, the year in which Thompson made his start, A. C. Haw- 

 kins, proprietor of Riverview Poultry Yards, Lancaster, Mass., issued 

 his first mating list. He listed one select mating from which eggs 

 were ofifered at $5 per 13; two matings at $3 per 13 eggs; and a fourth 

 yard from which eggs were quoted at $2 per sitting. Hawkins had 

 dipped strongly into the Pitman, Drake and Oilman strains. His 

 yard No. 2 was headed by a cockerel, "Mark Pitman II, sired by 



