Szabó Miklós szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1962 (Budapest, 1962)

Dr. Martha Zsuzsanna: A magyar tyúk nemesítésének első időszaka

Pioneers of Hungarian poultry improvement adopted two different methods. One group undertook to improve the Hungarian barnyard chicken through rational and consequent pure selection. Others, however, adopted the method of cross-breeding with cocks of foreign breeds. Cochin was the first breed imported in large numbers to Hungary, followed in succession by the Brahma, Plymouth, Langshan and Orpington throughout the second half of the 19

th and the first decade of the 20

th century. The breeds distributed for breeding purposes have been constantly changed. Thus the stock slightly gaining in weight, lacked uniformity and had become mixed. Improvers of the pure breed proposed to breed yellow, white and speckled varieties of Hungarian barnyard chicken with a fuller body. The first phase of the improvement of Hungarian poultry extended about up to 1914. In this country poultry farming was a typical small-scale farming practice, owners of larger estates had no serious economic interest in the development of poultry farming. Contradictions inherent in the semi-feudal economic policy of the time impeded the realization even of fundamentally sane projects. Consequently, success was only partial. Hungary had to wait another fifty years for the foundations of modern poultry farming to be laid. 6* - 7 83