144 THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 



about five gallons to a barrel of meal, and mixed it up 

 well. They tried to get oxen to eat it, but it was no go. 

 They kept trying every thing with it for a week or more, 

 and by that time it was about the stinkenest mess that 

 was ever got up on the Island, where they are famous for 

 smells, especially in the fish season. I guess they have nt 

 heerd the last of that ile meal yet.&quot; 



&quot; The oxen were sensible brutes for not touching such 

 stuff,&quot; said I. &quot; But you see, Uncle Jotham, this is not 

 that kind of oil meal.&quot; 



&quot; Du tell ! &quot; 



&quot; You know there are certain kinds of plants that pro 

 duce oil-bearing seeds, and when they are pressed for the 

 sake of the oil, a cake remains, which is good for manure 

 or for provender: They press rape seed and the castor 

 oil bean, and the refuse cake makes a very good manure. 

 They press flax-seed to get linseed oil for painting, and 

 cotton seed to get oil for burning, for making soap, and 

 other purposes. The cake that remains is ground up into 

 meal, and is fed to cattle.&quot; 



&quot; Well, I never paid much attention to it, but I allers 

 tho t oil meal was such as they made on the Island.&quot; 



This talk with Uncle Jotham occurred more than, a year 

 ago, when I first begun to use the meal made from linseed 

 and cotton seed cake. I had not much faith in it myself, 

 when I- begun to use it, though I ought to have had; for 

 linseed cake has been used for fattening cattle, and va 

 rious feeding purposes, for several generations. It is as 

 tonishing to see how little faith people have in any thing 

 they have not seen and tried. 



In England, if a farmer has got to purchase feeding 

 stuff, he is certain to invest in oil-cake. In this country, 

 it is pretty certain to be corn or oats. Almost all the 

 oil-cake made in this country is sent to a foreign market, 

 because very few of our farmers have tried it. Once in a 

 while we find an imported farmer like John Johnston of 



