Minor Cereals, OU-hearing and Leguminous Seeds. 153 



The effect of oil meal on tlie quality of milk and butter has 

 been questioned, but if not over two or three pounds are fed daily 

 per cow, no ill results but much good will follow its use. (646-7) 

 A handful of oil meal at a feed will prove healthful to growing 

 pigs, and advertise itself in their sleek coats and general healthy 

 appearance. (892) The American farmer should give up the 

 use of oil meal and adopt the practice of his English brother in 

 feeding this valuable article in the nut form, which is more pala- 

 table with cattle. 



207. Castor-oil seed in linseed meal. — Fatalities are occasion- 

 ally reported among cattle by English feeders through using oil 

 meal containing the pomace or beans of the castor-oil plant, which 

 deadly poison occasionally gets into the meal by accident, in 

 warehouses or elsewhere. The presence of castor beans or pom- 

 ace in the ration is shown by severe purging of the animal eating 

 even a very small amount of it, followed occasionally by death. 

 Leather ^ reports a method of detecting the castor bean or castor 

 pomace in stock feeds, which though too complicated for the 

 feeder is useful to the chemist. 



208. Fertilizing constituents in linseed meals. — Linseed cake or 

 meal is rich in the elements of fertility, especially nitrogen, and 

 for this reason as well as its general good qualities and nutritive 

 effect it is a favorite feeding stuff with the English stockman. 

 The voidings of animals receiving this feed should be carefully 

 saved, for in the fertility they contain rests quite a fraction of the 

 first cost of this feed. 



209. Home use of oil meal. — A large portion of the oil cake 

 produced in this country fi-om flax seed finds a market in Euro- 

 pean countries. The quantity shipped abroad varies greatly from 

 year to year, according to the relative prices ruling for feeding 

 stuffs in European and American markets. Woll ^ estimates that 

 if half the oU cake manufactured in this country is shipped abroad, 

 it means an annual loss of more than thirteen million pounds of 

 nitrogen, four million pounds of phosphoric acid and three and a 

 half million pounds of potash, representing an aggregate value, as 



1 Analyst. Vol. 17; Jour. Roy. Agr. Soc, 1892. 

 »Rept. Wis. Sta.,1895. 



