The English Dorking is one of the oldest of European breeds and is possessed of five toes.  Five-toed fowls were reported in Rome and exist to-day in Turkey and Japan.  The Dorkings may be descended directly from the Roman fowls, or various strains of five-toed fowls may have arisen independently from the preservation of sports.

The chief point to be noted in all European poultry is that it differs from Asiatic poultry in being smaller, lighter feathered, quicker maturing, of greater egg-producing capacity, less disposed to become broody, and more active than the Asiatic fowl.

The early American hens were of European origin, but of no fixed breeds.  About 1840 Italian chickens began to be imported.  These, with stock from Spain, have been bred for fixed types of form and color, and constitute our Mediterranean or non-sitting breeds of the present day.  Soon after the importation of Italian chickens a chance importation was made from Southeastern Asia.  These Asiatic chickens were quite different from anything yet seen, and further importations followed.

Poultry-breeding soon became the fashion.  The first poultry show was held in Boston in the early ’50’s.  The Asiatic fowls imported were gray or yellowish-red in color, and were variously known as the Brahmapootras, Cochin-Chinas and Shanghais.  With the rapid development of poultry-breeding there came a desire to produce new varieties.  Every conceivable form of cross-breeding was resorted to.  The great majority of breeds and varieties as they exist to-day are the results of crosses followed by a few years of selection for the desired form and color.  Many of our common breeds still give us occasional individuals that resemble some of the types from which the breed was formed.  The exact history of the formation of the American or mixed breeds is in dispute, but it is certain that they have been formed from a complex mixing of blood from both European and Asiatic sources.

The English have recently furnished the world with a very popular breed which was originated by the same methods.  I refer to the Orpingtons.

The ever growing multiplicity of varieties of chicken is in reality only casually related to the business of the poultryman whose object is the production of human food.

Breeding as an art or vocation, is a source of endless pleasure to man, and as such, is as worthy of encouragement as is painting, music, or the collection of the bones of prehistoric animals.  Breeding as an art has produced many forms of chickens that are entirely worthless as food producers, but this same group of poultry breeders, tempered to be sure by the demands of commercialism, have produced other breeds that are certainly superior for the various commercial purposes to the unselected fowls of the old-fashioned farm-yard.