30 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



that the present comparatively adequate supplies of beef 

 and mutton are but the precursors of grave future 

 scarcity. The fine season with which Scotland and the 

 North of England have been favoured will possibly 

 mitigate the consequences which may be expected to 

 arise from the untoward weather of the South. 



Something, at least, may be gained by an early 

 examination of our prospects in this direction. Farmers 

 with a short crop of roots or bad hay may be induced 



to keep the cattle and sheep, for which they apparently 

 have insuflficient food, by going more deeply into arti- 

 ficial feeding stuffs, if an unusually high price for beef 

 and mutton may be anticipated in the spring. Further, 

 an early appreciation of our future wants may enable 

 our continental neighbours to send us more cattle and 

 sheep than heretofore, and thus a more equable supply 

 of food may be looked for. Your obedient servant, 



A South Wilts Farmer. 



THE PURIFICATION OF WATER FOR CATTLE. 



Sib, — I have read witli much interest the letter of your 

 correspondent signing himself " X. Y. Z.," upon the above 

 subject, and trust you will allow me space for a few ob- 

 servations upon this important question. 



For many years back my attention has been exclusively 

 devoted to the purification of water; and, although lean- 

 not claim the merit of being the first discoverer of the ex- 

 traordinary efficacy of animal charcoal in this process, I 

 was the first to adapt it exclusively and in a practical 

 form. 



The Patent Moulded Carbon Company are now working 

 out one of my earlier patents, and in my most recent one, 

 to which your correspondent alludes (without, however 

 any mention of my name), I have introduced improve- 

 ments which overcome the tediousness and costliness of my 

 first x^rocess, besides possessing other important advantages 

 over my first plans. I will not here attempt to follow your 

 correspondent in his remarks upon the injurious efiects of 

 impure water upon cattle. 



About this there can exist no doubt in the minds of any 

 one who has bestowed a moment's thought upon the sub- 

 ject, and who is ever so slightly acquainted with the strik. 

 ing facts which our sanitary reformers have been at such 

 pains to make known. To what your correspondent has 

 said upon this point, I will merely a-.ld, that the substances 

 with which water is contaminated are very various, some 

 being highly prejudicial to animal organism, and some quite 

 innocuous, if not beneficial ; and that animal charcoal, 

 although a positive specific against organic matter (the 

 most frequent and fatal of all the contaminating substances) 

 is wholly inoperative upon many of the others. 



Those who are sufficiently interested in this matter to 

 desire to pursue it further, are referred to the able publica- 

 tions of Doctors Lancaster, Letheby, and others, and they 

 will find the whole matter popularly treated in a little work 

 upon '• Water and its Contaminations," upon which I am at 

 present engaged. 



Your correspondent very pertinently dwells, when refer- 

 ring to the well-known preference of some cattle for impure 

 water over other apparently pure and bright, to the extra- 

 ordinary force of habit, and illustrates this point by a re- 

 ference to the preference of the aborigines of New Zealand 

 for stinking over fresh animal food, It may be interesting 

 to your readers to know of a similar fact near home. In 

 the course of a long residence, some time ago, in the interior 

 of Germany, I was astonished to find that whereas fresh 

 sea fish, when obtainable, was thought little of, it was much 

 relished when in a state of decomposition, which would 

 have rendered its use in countries nearer the sea quite im- 

 possible, 



I may also add that my experiments have confirmed an 



idea which struck me when reflecting upon this strange 

 preference of cattle for impure over apparently pure 

 water, and that I have found such preference to be fre- 

 quently well founded, the muddy best liked contain- 

 ing merely earthy admixtures of a comparatively harmless 

 character, whilst the rejected water, although clear and 

 bright, I have found to be contaminated with substances 

 highly prejudicial to health. Such of your readers as re- 

 member the terrible ravages of the cholera in the district 

 about Golden-square, where the inhabitants were at con- 

 siderable pains to procure the clear bright water of the 

 Broad-street well, will not be astonished at this fact ; in 

 which we have another illustration of the occasional in- 

 scrutable superiority of animal instinct over the reasoning 

 powers of man. 



Your correspondent alludes to the progress which this 

 question of purifying the water for cattle has made amongst 

 the metropolitan and suburban dairymen, and to the ap- 

 paratus used for this purpose, and recommends the adoption 

 by farmers of similar means, which he thinks may be readily 

 provided by each individual for himself, His information 

 is evidently drawn from a little circular issued by the ex- 

 hibitors of my apparatus, at the Canterbury meeting of the 

 Pioyal Agricultural Society, and probably from a personal in- 

 spection of it at that show, and I think it would only have been 

 fair had he acknowledged the source from whence be derived 

 his information. This has probably been an unintentional 

 omission, and in any case I readily forgive it, in considera- 

 tion of the able manner in which be has called attention to 

 this important subject. I may, however, be permitted to 

 remark, that to myself is exclusively due the credit of 

 having brought out the first, and, so far as I know, the only 

 agricultural cattle filter, and of having been the earliest 

 practical applier of the purifying process to the water sup- 

 plied to beasts. My apparatus is the only one in use by the 

 metropolitan dairymen, and, I have little hesitation in say- 

 ing, is the only one adapted to their requirements. 



The Agricultural Engineers Company of London ex- 

 hibited my patent poitable agricultural pump filter at Can. 

 terbury. By means of it the most impure water to be ob- 

 tained in the neighbourhood, coloured a deep red with log- 

 wood shavings, and rendered still more oflfensive by the 

 addition of hydro-sulphate of ammonia, was pumped up 

 perfectly brilliant and pure, and free from all offensive smell, 

 to the astonishment of the crowds who were daily collected 

 round the stand, and who ireely drank it when filtered. 

 To such of your readers as had not an opportunity of then 

 inspecting it, I may remark that a similar one can be daily 

 seen in operation in the warehouses of the Agricultural 

 Engineers Company, Swan-lane, London Bridge, where 

 any information as to its application can be had. 



