14 POULTRY CULTURE 



Improved native stocks. In fowls, especially, flocks of superior 

 quality were without doubt numerous enough to have considerable 

 influence on the general stock. With an occasional exception these 

 improved stocks were of no fixed color type. They are perhaps best 

 described as such mongrels, not much better than the general run 

 of native stocks, as would be obtained by selecting the best for 

 breeding instead of for eating. Now and then a person particularly 

 interested in poultry would breed his flock to one type of color, 

 but the prevailing belief was that the best breeding was that which 

 combined the greatest variety ; and, as a rule, specimens leaving 

 such flocks were not bred to the type, but were used to give to 

 the purchaser's stock such of their quality as they could. Hawk- 

 colored or Dominique fowls were commonly thought to be su- 

 perior layers, but in general, virtue was attributed to the color, 

 without regard to breeding or other characteristics. This color 

 type being also a most persistent one, hawk-colored fowls were 

 numerous, and occasional references may be found to flocks in 

 which this was the dominant color. 



Interest in distinctive types. The first importations of foreign 

 breeds to attract general attention were the importations of fowls 

 from China in 1846 {}). Though details and dates are lacking, it 

 is scarcely open to doubt that both Asiatic ^ and European fowls 

 were occasionally imported in colonial times, — possibly some 

 breeds by early settlers ; but there is little evidence of interest 

 in improved stock of any kind until after the Revolution. 



With the awakening of interest in and inquiry for stock of 

 reputedly pure and superior blood, it was found that there was 

 altogether a great deal of such stock in the country, and that all 

 the principal types were well represented. Until the sensational 

 exploitation of the Asiatics they seemed less in favor than the 

 Dorkings, Spanish, and Polish. All of these races, and others 

 which came in later, were crude as compared with the carefully 

 developed types of to-day. The wonderful stories sometimes told 

 of their size, precocity, and productiveness greatly stimulated 

 interest in them. On the supposition that these stories were 

 authentic, the impression grew up in later times that the early 



' Kerr, Domestic and Ornamental Poultry (1851), p. 270, says that Asiatic 

 fowls were brought to the vicinity of Philadelphia about forty years before. 



