CHAPTER XrV. 



The American Breeds, 



As has been previously stated, the introduction of the Shanghffi fowl, during 

 the fifth decade of the present century, was the origin qf a deep and wide- 

 spread interest in poultry breeding, which has resulted in the great improve- 

 ment of many imported breeds, as well as the production, by crossing these 

 breeds with each other and with the original mongrel stock of the country, of 

 several entirely new breeds. 



^mong these the Light Brahma might appropriately be classed, as there seems 

 to be no evidence that this breed exists in India or China in the shape 

 in which we know it. The Brown Leghorn is another breed which owes 

 its origin to the selection of American fanciers. As these breeds, however, re- 

 tain in a very marked form the characteristic^ of other Asiatic or Mediterranean 

 breeds, they are described in those classes, while only such as have been pro- 

 duced here by a more independent method of crossing are ranked as Ameriean 

 breeds. 



Of those thus described the Erminettes and American Sebrights have not yet 

 been admitted to the Americam, Standard, but the great interest being takeii in 

 the latter, especially, must soon result in its admission. Other crosses are be- 

 ing made in different directions, and the list of partially established American 

 breeds might be indefinitely lengthened, but none have yet been prominently 

 before the public sufficiently long to give a reasonable assurance of becoming 

 permanent. 



THE PLYMOUTH EOCKS, 



In 1849 Dr. J. C. Bennett, of Plymouth, Mass., exhibited a cross-bred strain of 

 fowls which he called " Plymouth Rocks." These fowls were the result of cross- 

 ing several Asiatic breeds and the Dorking, jind were of uncertain, motley 

 colors. For a short time they maintained a degree of populai-ity, but they soon 

 deteriorated and eventually became extinct. 



Several years after the practical extinction of Dr. Bennett's Plymouth Eocksj 

 a new breed sprang up, apparently simultaneously, from several parts of New 

 England, and, as a matter of course, as soon as the breed had had time to 

 'demonstrate its good qualities, and to prove that the most valuable cross of a 

 century had been made, numerous claimants arose for the honor of having orig- 

 inated it, and a second "Light Brahma" war was wiged with great deter- 

 mination, one party claiming that a Mr. Spaulding, of Putnam, Conn., produced 

 the genuine Plymouth Rocks in 1866 by a cross between a "hawk-colored" 



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