In the light of the history of American breeds which did afterwards become popular we can see now that the ideas of the masses of American poultry keepers were not as strictly practical as their objections to the various foreign breeds appeared to show. The three varieties that have just been mentioned, and many others arising from time to time, met all the expressed requirements of the practical poultry keeper quite as well as those which subsequently caught his fancy. Indeed, as will be shown farther on, some of the productions of this period, after being neglected for a long time, finally became very popular. Usually this happened when their color became fashionable. =The modern Barred Plymouth Rock.= Shortly after our Civil War two poultrymen in Connecticut--one a fancier, the other a farmer--engaged in a joint effort to produce the business type of fowl that would meet the favor of American farmers. A male of the old Dominique type was crossed with some Black Cochin hens. This mating produced some chickens having the color of the sire, but larger and more robust. Another and more skillful fancier saw these chickens and persuaded the farmer to sell him a few of the best. A few years later, when, by careful breeding and selection, he had fixed the type and had specimens enough to supply eggs to other fanciers, he took some of his new breed to a show at Worcester, Massachusetts. Up to this time he had not thought of a name for them, but as people who saw them would want to know what they were called, a name was now necessary. It occurred to this man that the name "Plymouth Rock," having once been given to a promising American breed, would be appropriate. So the birds were exhibited as Plymouth Rocks. [Illustration: Fig. 46. Buff Plymouth Rock cock] This new breed caught the popular fancy at once, for it had the color which throughout this country was supposed always to be associated with exceptional vigor and productiveness, and it had greater size than the Dominique. The fame of the new breed spread rapidly. It was impossible to supply the demand from the original stock, and, as there is usually more than one way of producing a type by crossing, good imitations of the original were soon abundant. Farmers and market poultrymen by thousands took up the Plymouth Rock, while all over the land fanciers were trying to perfect the color which their critical taste found very poor. [Illustration: Fig. 47. Silver-Penciled Plymouth Rock hen]