MISSOURI BOTANICAL, GARDEN BULLETIN 145 



In packing the seed for export great care is necessary to 

 prevent overheating and subsequent combustion. Recently a 

 fire in the hold of a ship being loaded at Nigeria was traced 

 to combustion of sacks of palm kernels. They had been 

 packed and stored for some time during the dry season and 

 placed in the blazing sun for a few days previous to loading. 

 These conditions caused the partial exuding of oil which 

 was readily absorbed by the extremely dry sacks when loaded 

 in the hold of the ship, causing combustion. The investiga- 

 tion also showed that the fire started at the outside of the 

 sacks, not inside among the kernels, and the partially burned 

 sacks still held from 20 to 25 per cent oil. 



Palm Kernel Cake. — In the early days of importation the 

 residue of the palm after expressing the oil, called palm 

 kernel cake, was discarded as useless. The Germans dis- 

 covered that when it was fed to milch cows the amount of 

 butter fat was increased % per cent, thus making it pos- 

 sible to get as much butter from nine cows as it formerly 

 took ten cows to produce. Experiments carried out by an 

 English firm which now uses large quantities of seeds proved 

 that returns are equally as good from the use of palm oil 

 cake as from linseed cake or decorticated cotton-seed cake. 

 For the purpose of this experiment 30 head of cattle, 18 heifers 

 and 12 bullocks, all cross-bred 2-year-olds, were used. These 

 were divided into three lots of ten each, each experiment 

 employing 6 heifers and 4 bullocks. Prior to the experiment 

 the cattle were subjected to a preparatory period of feeding 

 in order to accustom them to experimental foods. During 

 the trial No. 1 was fed with linseed cake, No. 2 with 

 decorticated cotton-seed cake, and No. 3, with palm kernel 

 cake. The cakes were also fed in mixture with locust-bean 

 cake or meal. The experiments covered 84 days, which was 

 divided into three periods of 28 days each, the animals being 

 weighed at the beginning and again at the end of each 

 experiment. The final conclusions were: 



"1. Fed in the same quantities, palm-kernel cake may be 

 expected to give equally as good a return in live weight 

 increase as linseed cake or decorticated cotton cake, and at 

 present prices it gives a better monetary return than either 

 of these. 



"2. Fed in mixture with locust-beanj meal it is taken 

 readily by stock, and no difficulty need be experienced in 



