CHAPTER XXI 



JAVAS 



An American production — Not extensively bred at the present time — 

 How to mate both Black and Mottled Javas 



The Java is one of the oldest American breeds. Controversies 

 have raged concerning its origin, and, while they have subsided, the 

 issue never has been settled completely, and in 1920 the question was 

 taken up anew. 



Black Javas. There are two varieties of Javas, Black and Mottled. 

 The Black Java is the older variety and the original from which the 

 Mottled was produced. 



The Black Java is mentioned as an ancestor of the Barred 

 Plymouth Rock, and the question has been whether this so-tailed 

 Black Java was what we now term a Black Java or whether it was 

 a Black Cochin. The weight of the evidence clearly indicates that 

 all the big black fowls were first called "Javas," and that in reality 

 it was the Cochin which was used in the original Spaulding cross 

 which produced the first Barred Plymouth Rocks. 



C. P. Nettleton, an old-time breeder of Asiatics, writes of having 

 purchased some Black Cochins in 1868. In a letter^ dated in 1901, 

 he said: 



They were commonly called by most people Black Javas, had feathered \eg9, 

 but scant feathering, hardly a bird having any feathers on the middle toe. Most 

 of the parties who spoke of these black birds as long ago as 1868 called them 

 Black Javas. Some of this kind of fowls were shown at the New York show held In 

 Barnum's Museum long before that time. 



At the Philadelphia Poultry Show of 1871 {he classification read 

 "Black Cochins or Javas." This recorded history helps the breeder 

 of today to accept the account of the origin of the modern Black 

 Java as chronicled by J. Y. Bicknell, an honored secretary of the 

 American Poultry Association from 1876 to 1883, and one of the fore- 

 most breeders and judges in his day and generation. 



The western strain. According to Bicknell, the Black Java was 

 bred in Missouri by a family who came into possession of three eggs 

 from the poultry yard of a doctor who bred what he called Javas. 

 The doctor was very selfish of his stock, so his coachman "borrowed" 

 three eggs and from the chickens hatched from these eggs, "the 

 American Javas," says Bicknell, "have all descended." 



The breed was first brought into Duchess county, New York, in 

 1857, by a family who moved there from Missouri. From this source 

 the eastern flocks were established. Until about 1880 the variety was 

 little known, but by 1890 were well known fowl and more popular 

 than at the present time. 



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