623 COMPOSITION OF HEMP AND LINT SEEDS. 



practical experience, when we come to direct our attention more parti- 

 cularly to the feeding of stock. 



4°. Fatty matter in the grasses. — Besides woody fibre, starch, gum, 

 and gluten, dry hay and straw contain also a variable proportion of fatty 

 matter. According to Liebig, it does not exceed 1-56 per cent, in hay, 

 while, according to Dumas and Boussingault, as much as 3, 4, or even 5 

 per cent, of tat can be extracted from it. To this fact we shall also re 

 turn when considering the methods of fattening stock. 



5°. Inorganic matter in the grasses. — The proportion of saline and 

 earthy matter contained in the grasses is an important feature in their 

 composition. This, as I have already said, is much larger than in any 

 of the other kinds of food usually given to animals, being seldom less 

 than 5, and occasionally amounting to as much as 10 per cent, of their 

 weight when in the state of hay or straw. A large proportion of the ash 

 left by the stems of the corn plants, and by many grasses, consists of 

 silica. The straw of the bean, pea, and vetch, and the different kinds 

 of clover hay, contain little silica, its place in these plants being supplied 

 by a large quantity of lime and magnesia. 



§ 25. Of hemp, line, rape, and other oil-bearing seeds. 



The oily seeds are important to the agriculturist from their long ac- 

 knowledged value in the feeding and fattening of cattle. Lintseed is ex- 

 tensively used for the latter purpose, both in its entire state and in the 

 form o^cake — when the greater part of the oil has already been expressed 

 from it. All these seeds, however, are not cfjually palatable to cattle. 

 Some varieties they even refuse to eat. Among these is the rape-seed, 

 from which so much oil is expressed, and the cake left by which is now 

 so extensively employed as a manure. 



These seeds are distinguished from those of the corn plants, by con- 

 taining, instead of starch or sugar, a predominating proportion of oil; and 

 instead of their gluten a substance soluble in water, which possesses many 

 of the properties of the curd of cheese {casein). 



We are in possession of a somewhat imperfect analysis of hemp seed 

 and of the seed of the common lint, according to which the varieties ex- 

 amined consisted in 100 parts of — 



Hemp seed Lime seed 



(Bucholz). (Leo Meier) 



Oil 19-1 11-3 



Husk, &c 38-3 44-4 



Woody fibre and starch . . 6'0 1*5 



Sugar, &c 1-6 10-8 



Gum 9-0 7-1 



Soluble albumen (Casein ?) . 24-7 15-1 



Insoluble do — 3*7 



Wax and resin .... 1'6 3-1 



Loss 0-7 3-0 



100 100 



These analyses show that, besides the oil, these seeds contain consi- 

 derable proportions of gum and sugar and a large (piantity of a substance 

 here called soluble albumen, of whicli nitrogen is a constituent part, but 



