The leghorn breed is believed to have come from Tuscany. The original imports of brown and white leghorn breeding stock were received in America from 1852-1853. From here, there was a division between breeders who couldn't agree on whether productivity was the most important measure of a breed, or the whether the combination of form and function gave a breed it's value. Proponents of productivity created an industrial strain of birds that today are used primarily for commercial egg laying flocks because of their petite size, low feed consumption and high productivity of the Leghorn. Non-industrial leghorns are kept in small breeding flocks across the country and continue to express their original nature: active, productive, fertile, and hardy.