. Our domestic birds; elementary lessons in aviculture . forfine specimens, which were considered absurd in the days of the hen fever, are now ordi-nary prices for stock ofhigh quality. How the Americanbreeds arose. It is naturalto suppose that with sucha variety of types of fowls,from so many lands, therewas no occasion for Amer-icans to make any newbreeds. If, however, youlook critically at the for-eign breeds, you maynotice that not one ofthem had been developedwith reference to the sim-ple requirements of theordinary farmer and poul-try keeper. It was theincreasing demand for eggs and poul
. Our domestic birds; elementary lessons in aviculture . forfine specimens, which were considered absurd in the days of the hen fever, are now ordi-nary prices for stock ofhigh quality. How the Americanbreeds arose. It is naturalto suppose that with sucha variety of types of fowls,from so many lands, therewas no occasion for Amer-icans to make any newbreeds. If, however, youlook critically at the for-eign breeds, you maynotice that not one ofthem had been developedwith reference to the sim-ple requirements of theordinary farmer and poul-try keeper. It was theincreasing demand for eggs and poultry for market that hadgiven the first impulse to the interest in special breeds. Thefirst claim made for each of these was that it was a better layerthan the ordinary fowl. In general, these claims were true, butfarmers and others who were interested primarily in producingeggs and poultry for the table were rather indifferent to theforeign breeds, because, among them all, there was not one aswell adapted to the ordinary American poultry keepers needs. Fig. 43. Barred Plymouth Rock cock. (Pho-tograph from Bureau of Animal Industry,United States Department of Agriculture) FOWLS 55 as the old Dominique or as the occasional flocks of the oldnative stock that had been bred with some attention to sizeand to uniformity in other characters. To every foreign breed these practical poultry keepers foundsome objection. The Dorking was too delicate, and its five-toedfeet made it clumsy. The Hamburgs, too, were delicate, and themost skillful breeding was required to preserve their beautifulcolor markings. The superfluous feathers on the heads ofthe crested breeds and on the feet of the Asiatics were equallyobjectionable. All the Euro-pean races except the Leghornshad white skin and flesh-coloredor slate-colored feet, while inAmerica there was a very de-cided popular preference forfowls with yellow skin and Leghorns and the Asiaticsmet this requirement, but theformer were too small
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