Plymouth Rocks. 
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" In this out-cross breeding, just as much or more care is necessary, in selecting the breeding pen, as if 
typical birds were being put together with the object of producing Show specimens the first season. 
" Let the cock be of the colour you want to perpetuate, as correct in shade and (if breeding for barred) 
as even in markings as you can possibly get, and also select a bird with good type, the reasons for using an 
out-cross being to secure more vitality and vigour, and also for increased size. It may be taken for granted 
that your own strain is more or less deficient in these points, and therefore the hens you start with must be 
especially big, roomy, deep and wide in breast, wide at hocks, straight in the legs, and really good in bone, 
showing unmistakably all the characteristics of sound constitution ; and the male bird, as he has to a very 
great extent to be the founder of the new strain and the progenitor of the general Rock points, must excel 
in colour and synmietry. Breeding for Barred, use for preference, as an out-cross, White Rock hens; failing 
these, have no hesitation in using White Wyandottcs. Critics will argue that Wyandottes, being smaller 
than Rocks, this cross will result in loss of size ; but experience will quickly prove that the infusion of new 
blood so entirely distinct will result in progeny out-classing in size both sides of the parentage. Most 
Wyandottes, and especially Whites, excel in that beautiful roundness and fulness of outline which is so sadly 
deficient in many strains of Rocks, and for the improvement to be gained in this particular alone I am very 
partial to a Wyandotte cross, and have been wonderfully successful with it on several occasions in my own 
yards So many White Wyandotte strains being closely related to Silvers, the striped hackle of the latter 
will often appear in some of the progeny, in breeding for Barred, for a couple of generations, but careful 
selection will soon eradicate this. In out-crossing for White Rocks, it is almost immaterial which way you 
work the Wyandotte cross ; if your birds want renewed constitution, the Rock cock on to Wyandotte hens, 
but if you require size only reverse the order, and place a Wyandotte cock with the Rock hens, and the 
latter will be found the quickest way to breed out the rose comb. But one of the best crosses for improving 
White Rocks is to put a White Rock cock on to big roomy Black Rock hens. Choose hens with as much 
yellow shade in the legs as it is possible to get, and the Whites produced as a result of this mating will be 
singularly pure and clear in colour, and will breed true when crossed ivith other Whites. 
" This cross will often throw some beautifully clear blue Barred birds, and also Black cocks with yellow 
legs, and is the cross which will eventually, I believe, prove to be the origination of Blacks as a separate 
variety. 
" Next to Wyandottes, the breed most nearly assimilating to Rocks in type is the Orpington, and the 
reason for this is palpable enough, when it is remembered, what a large proportion of Orpingtons show the 
distinct impress of Rock blood, in their decided barrings of blue or purple across the green sheen. In shape 
of body, and set-on of tail, the Rock and the Orpington are very much akin, but the latter is much larger in 
tail, and more flowing in that appendage, and a good deal shorter in leg. These in out-crossing, however, 
could soon be altered to the correct Rock type, but the great objection, to using Orpingtons as an out-cross, is 
the dark colour of their legs ; only for this they would be very useful, but it would take many generations to 
entirely breed out the dark shade in legs. Both Cochin and Brahma crosses have been used with fairly good 
results, the leg-feather being much easier to breed out than most people imagine. 
" Cochins have had a principal hand in the origin of most Buff strains, and also in that of a few AVhites. 
But, even when Wyandottes were in their chrysalis stage, the signs of strong Brahma crossing in many 
American strains of Barred Rocks were strongly pronounced, and, though not exactly a common ancestor, I 
am strongly of opinion that our American cousins owe the greater part of that beautiful rotundity of 
symmetry so akin in their two leading breeds — the Rock and the Wyandotte — to the blood of the Brahma 
fowl. 
" Having reared the progeny of your first year's out-cross, select the most typical pullets and put to a 
cock as similar as possible (but not closely related) to the one you started with, and put the best coloured 
cockerel bred from the out-cross on to hens of good type and clear colour of the variety you are breeding 
for. From the second year's chickens take the pick of the best grown pullets from both breeding pens 
and put them back to the original cock, if he is still alive ; failing this, on to as typical a cock as you can 
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