CATTLE AND SHEEP. 



judices against this food were founded on the three letters 

 OIL. Persons who are prejudiced neither investigate 

 nor reason, or they would have discovered that linseed-cake 

 consists of the husks and farinaceous parts of linseed from 

 which all the oil has been expressed by most powerful 

 machinery ; and that though the quantity of oil expressed 

 from a given quantity of seed has been constantly on the 

 increase in consequence of improvements in the machinery, 

 there has been no corresponding, nor indeed any, decrease 

 in the fat-producing properties of the cake. A more re- 

 fined investigation would have informed them that a ton of 

 cake contains less oil than a ton of any sort of grain. The 

 same delusion which appalled the consumers delighted 

 the producers of beef. They fancied that it was about to 

 lead them to an important discovery. They argued, not 

 illogically " If the remains of oil in this article of cake 

 have such great feeding properties, how vast must they be 

 before any oil has been expressed from it ! " 



Forty years ago we saw at Bretby, under the charge of 

 Mr. Blackie, and at Swarkestone Lowes, then occupied by 

 Mr. Smith, the earliest systematic stall-feeder in the 

 midland counties, considerably extensive preparations for 

 crushing, and steaming, and steeping linseed. Some other 

 feeders went a step further, and said, " If oil adulterated 

 with husks, &c., is so feeding, how much more feeding 

 must oil unadulterated be ! " and they gave the oil neat. 

 But all the parties soon relinquished such practice. The 

 result did not bear out the a priori reasoning. The beasts 

 so fed never got very fat, and the fat they had was very 

 loose and oleaginous. Experience soon showed that neither 

 linseed nor oil could be used with advantage until they 

 were let down by a very large admixture of chopped straw 

 or of some other low-qualitied matter. On this experience 

 the recently-renewed practice of feeding with linseed (of 

 which Mr. Warnes is the apostle) is founded. We give 

 the account of the preparation in his own words : " One 

 pailful of linseed-meal to eight of water." This makes a 



