Annual Report jor l^M'i^o/ the Consultlny Chemht. 211 



harm had resulted to stock feeding on the cake. I found, both 

 by chemical and microscopical tests, a marked amount of 

 mustard seed to be present, and to this, I have no doubt, the 

 trouble was due. 



The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act continues to be 

 administered in much the same way as heretofore. In some 

 counties and boroughs it is energetically worked, and the need 

 of watchfulness as regards the purchase of feed-stuffs and 

 manures for the farm is frequently well illustrated. In other 

 places the Act remains almost a " dead letter." Up to the 

 present, the oft-talked-of amendment of the Act has gone no 

 further, and the progress of the " Sales for Agricultural 

 Purposes " Bill seems to be indefinitely arrested. 



The adulteration of " oft'als " still continues, and, in addition 

 to the employment of oat " shudes " and rice " shudes " (which 

 have been frequently mentioned before in the case of middlings, 

 sharps, and other wheat offals, as also of barley meal), a new 

 adulterant — pea-husk — has come to the fore, and several cases 

 dealing with this have been reported to the Chemical Committee. 



In connection with the use of linseed cake, it will be 

 remembered that considerable agitation was caused by the 

 discovery that linseed, under certain conditions of growth 

 and state of ripening, could be shown to contain bodies known, 

 in chemical phraseology, as " cyanogenetic glucosides," bodies 

 which, on the seed being macerated and stirred up with warm 

 water, give rise to hydrocyanic (prussic) acid, and which hence 

 were believed to be likely to do injury to stock. Of late, 

 fm-ther work of research on this subject has been carried out, 

 with the general result of showing that even when these bodies 

 are present in what are, as yet, the highest quantities known in 

 the case of linseed cake, they do not produce any ill effects, 

 so long as the cake is fed in the dry state. The pi-ocess of 

 digestion would not seem to have any influence in setting free 

 hydrocyanic acid from the glucosides. But, if linseed cake 

 containing these bodies is soaked, then hydrocyanic acid may 

 1)6 set free and the cake thus become poisonous. 



Two matters which were referred to in some detail in my 

 last annual report have been again very prominent, and it may 

 be well therefore to revert to them. I allude to (1) the use 

 nf sawdust — in its raw or its prepared condition — in feeding 

 rakes and meals, and (2) the so-called " solubility " of basic 

 slag. 



In regard to sawdust, it is well known that — under the 

 name " bastol " or " bastol cake " — sawdust that has been 

 treated by chemical means is employed as a constituent of 

 feeding cakes and meals, and that these foods have obtained a 

 cei'tain amount of sale, even at prices as high as 8/. a ton. 



