clxxxvi 



Exchanges received laid upon the table by the Corresponding 



Secretary, who also stated that he had called the attention of Mr. 



Amos Sawyer to a notice in the '•'■ Nature" (313) of his article in 



No. 2 of vol. iii. of our Transactions quoting his statement, that 



in the State of Illinois " there were at least three million horses, 



cattle and mules, and five million hogs and sheep, and that they 



will consume more than seventy million gallons of water every 



twenty-four hours — quite a lake in itself" ; with the remark that 



" surely, this must be a misprint, or American animals are very 



thirsty beings." He had received from Mr. Sawyer the following 



reply : 



Hillsboro, Ills., Nov. 13, 1875. 

 Judge N. Holmes, St. Louis, Mo. 



Dear Sir: — Yours of the 9th at hand and contents noted. In reply 

 would say, it is not a misprint ; and therefore I presume that "American 

 animals are very thirsty beings." Had our "British cousin," however, 

 stopped to consider the difference between his little Island where the atmo- 

 sphere is always humid, and which at times becomes so charged with 

 moisture that the animals are really living in a cloudy and that of our 

 State, with her broad prairies situated nearly in the centre of our Great 

 Republic, where the temperature of midsummer almost equals that of the 

 torrid zone, and the atmosphere is so devoid of moisture that for some 

 years previous to the present season the "fall of dew" was scarcely percep- 

 tible, and the wind at times approximating a simoon, — he must readily 

 have perceived that animals would require a greater amount of water here 

 than in England ; and the statement would not have appeared so extrava- 

 gant. I should have answered more promptly, but wished to obtain the 

 views on this point of four men who have been handling stock all their lives, 

 and whose opinions, therefore, would be valuable. Three of them agreed 

 with me except in the amount consumed by cattle, considering that too loiv; 

 the other thought the estimate for hogs too high. In conclusion, then, I 

 will say, I have owned a stock-farm for 16 years ; and during this time have 

 owned thousands of cattle, hogs and sheep, and my conclusions are the 

 result of an experiment made with the view of ascertaining the amount of 

 water consumed in a given length of time by different animals. This esti- 

 mate was for six months, commencing with May, the time during which 

 stock are out on pasture. For winter it must be reduced one-half. Now 

 for the mode by which I arrived at the result : It was by placing a number 

 of each kind of animals by themselves and measuring the amount of wa- 

 ter consumed by each ; for instance, I took 12 cattle of different ages — 1°^ 

 2°, and 3°. I found a large 3-year old steer, with a big belly, would con- 

 sume 15 gallons S times a day : but the average amount for 2-year olds, 

 and upwards, was 10 gallons 3 times a day; yearlings, 7 gallons. The 

 amount would vary according to the degi-ee of heat, and condition of the 



