48 THE STOCKFEEDER'S COMPANION 



the manufacture of linoleum, and paint, for drenching 

 cattle, or for feeding with chaff and meals to horses as a 

 laxative. It has also the effect of enabling horses, etc., 

 to cast their coats in late winter or spring much more 

 readily. 



Linseed meal is produced by grinding flax seed, 

 and is a favourite food for young calves, which are 

 having a part of their milk ration substituted by rneals. 

 It has a composition rather similar to that of milk, 

 is very digestible, and is probably the safest milk 

 substitute that can be used for young calves. The 

 seeds should be ground in such a way as to bruise the 

 husk with the minimum amount of crushing of the 

 kernel, otherwise oil will be lost in the grinding. 

 The bushel weight of good flax seed is 52 to 56 Ibs. 



Oil Extraction. The seed is first of all screened 

 to remove impurities, and in many cases is led past 

 powerful magnets, which remove any pieces of metal 

 that may have found their way into the seed. It is 

 then ground to a meal with steel rollers, and conveyed 

 to a receptacle or kettle, where it is heated to about 

 1 60 F. with steam. This makes the oil thinner and 

 facilitates its extraction. The heated meal is admitted 

 into a movable, bottomless iron box, which is slided 

 forward and backward over a shallow rectangular mould, 

 beneath which is placed a long piece of sacking which is 

 a little wider than the cake. One forward and backward 

 sweep of the box fills the mould with meal. A low 

 pressure is applied to bring the meal together into the 

 cake form, so that, after the ends of this narrow piece of 

 sacking have been turned over the cake, it is completely 

 surrounded and can be transferred to the oil press, where 

 there are, as a rule, four tiers of cakes to each mould, so 

 as to admit of one tier being filled and the other three 



