National Agricultural Library

The Leghorns: Brown, White, Black, Buff and Duckwing

An Illustrated Leghorn Standard, With a Treatise on Judging Leghorns, and Complete Instructions on Breeding, Mating and Exhibiting

Reliable Poultry Journal Publishing Company. Quincy, IL

THE LEGHORNS— INTRODUCTORY

A Favorite Family Fowl, That Is Equally at Home on the Farm and in the Show Room—A Glance at Their Present Standing, With a Few Remarks on Type and Color—The Standard Down-to-Date—Browns, Whites, Blacks, Buffs, Duckwings.

Leghorns, figuratively speaking, cover the earth. Take the world over, and Leghorns, perhaps, are better known than any other existing breed. Games may be more widely known, but further than the knowledge that a Game is a Game (and in most minds a Pit Game at that), the average man or woman knows little of its characteristics, inquiry into these points being left to the fancier. On the other hand, go into the smallest village of Europe or America and the Leghorn will be found crowing as cheerily, strutting as proudly, and flying the fence as aggravatingly as here in the center of chickendom. and every man, woman and child will tell you these are some of its characteristics and will add with the greatest assurance — "it is the best layer on earth."

There is no doubt that continual selection of this breed for egg production has been the means of placing it at the front in that respect. As a general thing the average citizen, speaking of a layer, has in mind the Leghorn, and knows no other; yet the type of Leghorns differs in each country. If an English bird were placed beside an Ameri- can production, there would be seen few points of similarity except, perhaps, in color, and this dissimilarity in types of Leghorns is one of the points we are aiming at in this article.