The ad below ran in the Thorp Courier 3-Jun-1909 and featured the Egg Breeding Sales of Woodley S. Parks of Thorp, Wisconsin.

Elaine Wood Greene wrote:

We had Buff Orpington chickens they were a heavy chicken and laid brown eggs. So I'm sure the other was basically the same except they must have been a black chicken. They were somewhat more hardy than Leghorns, and being they were heavier they also were better for butchering, as they were meatier. As for expense I don't know. We had mostly heavy chickens, the only trouble with heavy hens they would get broody quicker than the Leghorns. But that was good if you wanted to hatch a bunch of chicks. When they would get broody my mother would put them under a basket for 3 days and then they would get over it and start to lay again. A brooding hen will not lay eggs, so that is why she did that. They didn't get anything to eat or drink during those 3 days, boy would the humane society be on us if we did that today.

Jean (Wessel) Rolstad wrote:

We had Leghorns and then went to Plymouth Rock chickens. They also laid brown eggs....as many breeds do. When my mother sold eggs we would get less for the brown than the white. City people didn't know the brown were the same as the white inside. Now the naturalists pay more for the brown eggs....'go figure!'

The Leghorns were good layers but lousey for eating, except if you fattened up a rooster or two. The Plymouth Rock were a fatter chicken (Like the Buff Orphingtons) and if they weren't good layers they were always good eating. When I was very young we had Leghorns and there was a rooster who decided I was a threat to his kingdom and used to chase me while I ran screaming from the barn to the house or vice versa. For many years I believed my 'belly button' was from a chicken pick. That guy attacked me every chance he got.

Our chickens were always free range chickens and I suspect produced less cholesterol than the chickens now who never see the out of doors. We do have a supplier of low cholesterol eggs in my area and I believe it has to do with feeding them some of the greenery ours used to eat naturally. It's called progress.

Obit: Parks, Woodley S. (1869 - 1918)

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