THE NUTRITIVE VALUE OF DIFFERENT OIL-CAKES, 



two great classes of the nutritive value of food in mind, you will 

 have no difficulty in understanding that oil-cake, especially lin- 

 seed-cake, is well adapted for fattening purposes, and may be 

 given with great advantage to young stock. In other words, it is 

 an article of food which is useful, not only for one purpose, but 

 indeed for most purposes for which concentrated food is supplied 

 by the farmer. 



The following diagram represents the average composition of 

 some kinds of oil-cake. 



AVERAGE COMPOSITION OF OIL-CAKES. 



Glancing at this diagram you will observe that linseed-cake 

 contains a small proportion of moisture ; only about 12 per cent, 

 of water exists in well-made and well-preserved cake whilst the 

 proportion of water which enters into the composition of ordinary 

 articles of food, such as turnips, mangold, swedes, or cabbage, is 

 exceedingly large. Thus, in an ordinary turnip you will find from 

 90 to 92 per cent, of water, and in large bulbs the proportion of 

 water even rises higher. I might mention, in passing, that it is 

 usually larger in big bulbs than in medium-sized roots, a very 

 striking instance of which was recently brought under my notice. 

 My attention was directed to a field of turnips in my neighbour- 

 hood in which same roots of an enormous size had been produced. 

 I weighed some of them, and found that several weighed as much 

 as 221bs., whilst one weighed as much as 381 bs., which was the 

 heaviest root I have ever had brought under my notice. That 

 bulb contained no less than 94J per cent, of water, and 4J per 

 cent, of solid matter, and the latter principally consisted of woody 

 fibre. There was but very little sugar and very little flesh- 

 forming constituents, and it was evident that it had partially 

 undergone decomposition, as the interior was rotten and in a state 

 of putrescence. 



In the preceding diagram the woody matter is thrown together 

 in the heat and fat producing constituents ; but in a recent 



