AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
37 
Diseased Eyes of Animals- 
Profit of Poultry, No. II — Feeding, etc. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist : 
To provoke interesting and useful comparisons, 
I send an account of the products of my hen-yard 
during the year just closed. I had on hand Jan. 1, 
1858, 31 fowls, of which vve lost 4 hens by casu¬ 
alties before July 1. During the year we used in 
the family 81 fowls, and had on hand at the end 
of the year 45 more, making a total increase of 95 
fowls. The yield of eggs during the year amount¬ 
ed to 3465 !—ranging by months as follows : 
January. 274 May. 327 September... .212 
February_,368 June.309 October.184 
March.385 July. 252 November_295 
April. 345 August_ 281 December_ 233 
Total cost of grain for these hens, including 
also the food of about fifty pigeons, $70.03. 
There is nothing to boast of in the pecuniary re¬ 
sults, and nothing to be particularly remarked in 
the account, except, perhaps, the constant yield 
of eggs, which I attribute entirely to the fact that 
my hens have grain of all kinds always before 
them. This I find invariably the case wherever 
hens lay all the time. 
My fowls are of mixed breed, have a warm 
house, a large yard, and a wide range,* whenever 
no harm can be done by their scratching. They 
get, besides the grain, all the refuse of the house, 
and chopped meat two or three times a week in 
winter.t Instead of eighty-one fowls for the 
table, I should have had at least 125, but lost a 
good many by the intrusion of a strange dog,t 
* A needful thing for poultry in all circumstances. 
t An important point. Hens must have animal food 
supplied, when shut off from picking up insects, or it is 
useless to expect them to lay well. 
t Dogs are almost always in mischief of some kind, un¬ 
less their tails are cut off close—as close as the Dutchman 
would have them cut, that is, close behind the ears. 
and more were lost by an unfortunate experiment 
with grease, against a too copious use of which I 
would warn your readers. In November my 
March pullets began to lay. As a matter of 
course, my hen-house is kept clean, with a full 
supply of ashes for dusting, and broken oyster- 
shells to furnish lime for the eggs. 
January 3rd, 1859. Subscriber. 
Silver Spangled Bantams. 
The Bantam is the smallest specimen of fowl, 
and may with propriety be called the pigmy of the 
gallinaceous tribe Diminutive size and bold car¬ 
riage are important points in all Bantams. These 
beautiful emblems of pride and consequence, are 
peculiarly fancy fowls ; they have been accused 
of not being a useful kind, as of course there is 
little meat in a fowl which, when full grown, 
should weigh, the cock about one pound, the 
hen less—the eggs being small in proportion ; but 
their eggs are delicacies which would tempt al¬ 
most any.invalid. They must be considered more 
an object of curiosity than utility, and of course 
must expect to be viewed with no peculiar favor 
in this country except as “ pets.” 
Though extremely small in size, the Bantam 
cock is elegantly formed, and remarkable for his 
grotesque figure, his courageous and passionate 
temper, his amusing pompousness of manner, his 
overweening assumption and arrogance ; and his 
propensity to fight, and force every rival to “ turn 
tail,” has caused him many difficulties. He is a 
beautiful example of a great soul in a small body. 
He will attack a Cochin or Brahma ten times his 
own weight. Dixon says, “ His full rose-comb, 
and deep depending wattles are plump and red ; 
but this disproportionate size affords a most un¬ 
fortunate hold for the beak of his adversary ; but 
be cares not for that; a little glory is worth a 
good deal of pecking and pinching, and it is not a 
slight punishment, nor a merely occasional inflic¬ 
tion of it, that will make him give in The great 
hens, too, look down upon him on a first in¬ 
troduction, though they afterwards find out that 
they might as well have received him in a more 
feminine manner.” 
He is a pleasing little fellow, though an impu¬ 
dent consequential atom. Oh! the little saucy, 
strutting, foppish scamp! Who would think that 
such a contemptible minikin as that, should have 
the assurance to strut and parade his insignifi¬ 
cant person in the presence ot great hens, and 
should presume to show such marked attention 
to the members of families of weight and sub¬ 
stance—before the Misses, and still more, the 
Mistresses Cochin, Brahma and Dorking 1 I de¬ 
clare, there is no telling to what length impu¬ 
dence will go, so long as Bantams escape exter¬ 
mination. 
The Silver Spangled Bantam, is, perhaps, the 
most beautiful of the whole family. For perfec¬ 
tion of model and beauty of plumage, nothing 
can exceed them. The pair figured at the head 
of this article, are the property of M. Vas- 
son, Esq., Springside. They are, as may 
be seen in the portraits, beautifully mark¬ 
ed ; the tail of the cock is square, like 
that of the hen, without sickle-feathers, 
and carried high ; and the head thrown 
back, the head and tail nearly meeting; 
the wings jauntily dropping until they 
nearly brush the ground ; they have a rose- 
comb nicely pointed, and projecting be¬ 
hind; and light blue legs. The accuracy of 
marking is a very important point The 
feathers are spangled, that is, the ends 
tipped with black ; and the more exact this 
marking, and the more it extends to all the 
feathers of the bird, the greater its value. 
The ground color is ivory-white or rich 
cream, the ends of the feathers tipped 
with black. The cocks are hen-feathered 
as well as hen-tailed ; they have neither 
hackles nor plumes. 
The plumage of the hen is similar to that 
of the cock. They are very good and early layers, 
most excellent sitters, sedulous and affectionate 
mothers, but murderous step-mothers—that is, if 
you attempt to change, or add to, the number of 
the brood they have hatched themselves ; they 
will welcome the little strangers by making raw 
heads and bloody bones of them before you can 
say “ Jack Robinson.” Their chickens are of a 
creamy white, with two longitudinal dark stripes 
on the body. 
The Bantams are the fowls of all others for 
the village or city. We have known them to 
prosper and lay well through the winter in an 
under-ground room or cellar, well lighted. They 
are very domestic, often making their nests in 
the kitchen, depositing their eggs in the cradle 
or cupboard, when permitted. They have been 
known to lay even in a lady’s work-basket. 
From their size and delicacy they are very con¬ 
venient, as they always stand in the place of 
chickens, where small ones are not to be had ■ 
and as they are full-breasted and plump, they 
make a tolerable substitute for a partridge when 
potted and “smothered.” C. N. Bement 
Springside, Poughkeepsie. 
•-— 1 O — »—O*-. 
Mistakes about Bees. 
A great many people have undertaken to write 
about bees, without much knowledge of the sub¬ 
ject themselves ; and others, who have had ex¬ 
perience in bee-keeping for many years, have 
gained very little insight into the nature and 
habits of this wonderful insect. Many of the 
books in the long list of publications on bees and 
bee-culture, which was printed in the Agriculturist 
in September, (vol. 17, p. 270,) profess to give the 
results of long and patient study of their habits, but 
so many of these works abound with errors, that 
we are tempted sometimes to indorse David’s has¬ 
ty utterance, and say that “all men are liars.” Not 
that these misrepresentations are intentional, but 
when vision fails, imagination helps out the de¬ 
ficiency. And then, again, people often see 
things through other persons’ eyes. If neighbor 
So-and-so says that drones lay eggs, they will be 
sure to see the thing done the next time they 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
We have an ox which, (we suppose,) in some 
frolic of his, had an eye injured. For several 
days, perhaps two weeks, water ran freely, and 
it appeared to be very painful—even the light 
added to the pain. Supposing he would soon get 
over it we did nothing about it, until a white 
coating commenced covering the eye-ball. 
We then applied burned alum. The film 
has covered the whole ball, and he seems 
to be blind in that eye. Will you, Sir, or 
any of your correspondents, inform me 
what is the proper course to pursue 1 By 
so doing you will very much oblige one sub¬ 
scriber—perhaps many more besides. J. W« 
Bowcna Prairie, Jones Co., Iowa. 
The above was handed to an intelligent 
medical friend, and he replied as follows : 
The ox of thy correspondent had inflam¬ 
mation of the conjunctiva, (a delicate mem¬ 
brane lining the lid and covering the front 
of the eye). He should have placed the 
animal in a dark stall, reduced its allow¬ 
ance of food, applied cold evaporating 
washes, and given every morning, a dose of 
salts, (sulphate of magnesia). The ‘film’ was 
caused by an effusion of fibrin beneath the 
membrane. If blood vessels are seen snoot¬ 
ing across, the prospect of cure is unpromis¬ 
ing. Alum is best applied by blowing it through a 
quill. If this fails, use every morning a few 
drops of solution of nitrate of silver (lunar caus¬ 
tic), four grains to an ounce of water, or a solu¬ 
tion of iodine, two grains to an ounce of water. 
Be careful not to overdo the treatment and thus 
awaken a new inflammation. Perseverance in 
this plan is essential to success. 
