10 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



forming matters ia the decorticated cake amounts to 41 per 

 cent. ; iu the whole seed c.ike it is only 23 per cent.— j"**^ °^^- 

 half. So with reaped to the other constituents. The pro- 

 portion of woody fibre ia very much larger in the whole seed 

 cake than in the other. The husk in the whole seed cake for a 

 long time was a great impediment to the general use to which 

 cotton cake is now applied la this country. I remember when the 

 first cargo of cotton c&Ke came into England, before the decor- 

 ticated cotton cake was known. Trials were made of it, which 

 proved quite unsuccessful. People did not like it at ail ; and I 

 believe the cotton cake would never have been extensively used 

 if it had not been for the invention of a very useful machine 

 patented in America, by means of which the hard husks can 

 be removed from the kernel. The use of this machine gives 

 ua a superior oil and a superior cake. The cotton-seed oil, 

 made from the kernel alone, is a very useful article, and so is 

 the cake ; whereas the oil expressed from the whole seed is 

 dark-brown in colour, and cannot be used except for the com- 

 monest purposes for which oil is employed. The difference h\ the 

 value of the two descriptions of cake is so great that I almoot 

 think 2 tons of the oilcake made of the whole seed does not go 

 further than 1 ton of the best decorticated cotton seed cake. 

 Moreover, there is a certain danger in using the whole seed cake. 

 Several cases of so-called poisoning have been brought under 

 my notice within the last year or two. Animals that have 

 freely partaken of the whole seed cake have died suddenly, and 

 people have imagined that there was something injurious in 

 the husk ; but examination has shown that the effect produced 

 is very much like that which ia occasionally produced in tiie 

 case of boys who die from inflammation of the bowels in 

 counties where cherries are very abundant. Being very greedy, 

 and eating the cherries with the stones, they fet a stoppage of 

 the bowels, and so die from inflaramatioa. There is nothing 

 poisonous in the husk of the cotton eeed, and when given j u- 

 diciously, no injury will result; but if animals are supplied 

 with an unlimited quantity of dry food with the whole seed, 

 there is indeed a danger. The hard husk is indigestible, and 

 may roll together iu such large masses that inflammation of 

 the bowels will ensue. There is no such danger, however, iu 

 the use of decorticated cotton cake. The decorticated cake 

 occurs of various degrees of quality. And allow rae to ob- 

 serve, with respect to all kinds of cake, that not only the com- 

 position, but even in a higher degree the condition of the 

 cake determines in a great measure its value. I have here a 

 specimen which you would hardly recognise as of the same 

 description as another specimen, also on the table, of a very 

 beautiful character. It is the same kind of cake, only it is in 

 a bad condition. I say, then, the condition of a cake deter- 

 mines everything. Some time ago I was very gratified iu find- 

 ing what great care Mr. Stratton, of Broad Hintoo, the cele- 

 brated shorthorn breeder, takes in selecting the very best of 

 American barrel cake for his stock. We often forget that 

 animals have appetites as we have, and that they like food in a 

 good condition better than food in a bad one. The composi- 

 tion of two samples of the same food may not vary much, yet 

 the practical effect produced by them may vary exceedingly. 

 There is nothing remarkable in this, for we know that if we 

 get good wholesome bread, which is one or two days old, we 

 do well upon it ; but if it remains in a damp cellar, and gets 

 mouldy, stale, and moist, it loses its fine flavour, and iu this 

 condition may do us harm. So it is with stale, mouldy cakes. 

 Animals never do well on very old cakes. In examining, there- 

 fore, the different cakes, we ought to examine particularly 

 their conditiou. I allude especially to the examination of 

 cotton cake, because every person has the means of examining 

 its conditiou with very little trouble. It is not so easy to ex- 

 amine the condition of linseed ; it presupposes an extensive 

 acquaintance with various descriptions of linseed cake. You 

 must have seen a great many samples of cake before you can 

 give a trustworthy opinion. Not so with decorticated cotton 

 cake. In this the colour affords an excellent criterion as to its 

 freshness. The freshest cotton cake is as yellow as mustard. 

 I hold a piece of cake in my hand, the exterior of which is 

 brown, but if I cut away a portion you will observe that the 

 interior is bright-yellow— very different from the part that has 

 been exposed to the air. This was an excellent cake when we 

 first got it for feeding purposes, and we are feeding it exten- 

 sively in our farm at Cirencester. When we first had it it 

 was of a bright yellow colour, but you observe how it has since 

 changed. From this we may learn a very useful lesson— that 



we may take the colour as a guide to the conditiou aud age of 

 the cakes. If we are presented with a cake which is as brown 

 as the specimen before mc, and if you find on cutting it that 

 the brown colour has penetrated deep into the interior, we may 

 at once conclude that it is a stale, old cake. The deeper it has 

 penetrated, the older the cake, and the more it has suffered by 

 bad keeping. If it is kept in a damp place its colour and con- 

 dition are rapidly deteriorated. I now hasten on to speak 

 briefly of rapecake. The best rapecake, which however ia 

 rather scarce in commerce, is green German rape. I believe it 

 is as good as licseedeake for store cattle. It may not be per- 

 haps quite so useful for cattle that you want to bring up for 

 the Smithfield Show — rather tasty in their appetites ; but for 

 store cattle I believe the German rapecake is iu every respect 

 aa good as liuseed cake. The difference in their composition 

 i? very trifling. As you see by the diagram, the proportion of 

 oil is nearly the same ; and in many saicples of rapecake you 

 fiud a larger proportion of oil than iathe specimeu from which 

 this analysis was made. Unfortunately, however, rapecake is 

 frequently made of very dirty seed. Some foreign cake, more 

 especially Indian cake, is often made of seed which is full of 

 mustard. Several cases of poisouiug have occui red from its 

 use. Not long ago Mr. Greville lost four cows by the use of 

 this cake. It has been maintained that all Indian rapecakea 

 are pungent. That ia the case to a certain extent, but it doea 

 not follow that every description of Indian rapecake is poison- 

 ous, or so pungent as to produce injury. I find by a more ex- 

 tended examination of rapecakea made from Indian rape seed, 

 that some are very useful indeed, and can be used without 

 hesitation, while others are downright injurious. It it ia 

 made of the brown or yellow Guzurat seed, which I hold in my 

 banti, it ia good ; but when made of ditty seed, which is often 

 full of mustard, it may produce injury [several specimens were 

 exhibited]. I have sown some of the inferior seed, and got a 

 mixed crop of mustsrJ, and the plant from which the Indian 

 rapecape ia made. To give au idea of the injury that may be 

 produced by using inferior Indian rapecake, I have mixed 

 some cake with water, and will pass it round. You will have 

 no difficulty in smelling the mustard. I have aho a bottle 

 containing some of the essential oil which I have extracted 

 from the cake, the smell of which is of course still more power- 

 ful. It produces blisters on the hands ; aud the effects of a 

 mustard poultice applied inside may be readily imagined. 



Let me, in conclusion, briefly point out how you may exa- 

 mine cake, so as to be able to form some opinion as to its 

 qualities. Au excellent way of examining all descriptions of 

 cake is to reduce theai to powder. I should recommend for the 

 purpose a common kitchen grater. You should grate it till you 

 have about half an ounce of powder. It is better to powder it in 

 the way I have mentioned than to reduce it in a mortar to a 

 fine powder, for in that case you would be likely to destroy the 

 character of the seeds of weeds, and reduce the bran, if there 

 is any present, into a condition too fine for examination. The 

 powder should be mixed with about five ounces of water. 

 With good American cake the mixture is transparent, light 

 coloured ; it produces a stiff jelly, which is very agreeable to 

 the smell and the taste. The cake is so nice that one might 

 almost eat it with pleasure. If, however, you examine foreign 

 cakes, which in nine cases out of ten contain other descriptions 

 of oilseeds besides linseed, you will find the jelly to have a 

 very disagreeable smell, often very much like a canary bird- 

 cage — it smells like the refuse of canary bird sefed. This pe- 

 culiar smell arises chiefly from the camelinaseed in such cakes. 

 Then J would also observe that the colour ia quite different 

 in good and in bad cake. The latter has a dirty grey co- 

 lour, and if you examine it with the pocket microscope you 

 discover readily the particles that are not linseed. By dilut- 

 ing the thick paste with water, and stirring it up, you can re- 

 cognise the seed, which then subsides better. Then above the 

 sand generally floats the bran, which can be recognised by its 

 structure. Indeed, by the simplest solution, or rather sus- 

 pension in water, you can recognise a great many foreign mat- 

 ters in cake, and to some extent likewise recognise its condi- 

 tiou. Then, in addition to this examination, I would observe 

 that in the case of rapecake you ought to take half an ounce 

 of the powder and mix it with six ounces of cold water, keep- 

 ing the mixture in a stoppered bottle, and then examine it 

 after the lapse of 24 hours— not before. It ia a singular fact 

 that rapecake, even v.'hen containing a very large proportion 

 of mustard, has no smell whatever, nor is the smell developed 



