12 Composition and Nutritive Value of Cotton-cake. 



2. The mineral portion of cotton-cake resembles closely in 

 composition that of linseed and other oil-cakes. Like the ash 

 of all cakes, it is rich in earthy and alkaline phosphates, and well 

 adapted to supply animals with bone-materials. 



3. As far as the indications of chemical analysis can be 

 depended on, the best decorticated cotton-cake possesses about the 

 same nutritive value as linseed-cake. 



4. At the present time four distinct kinds of cotton-cake are 

 offered for sale in the market, namely : 



1. Thin decorticated cotton-cake. 



2. Thick decorticated cake. 



3. Common cake made of the whole seed. 



4. Oil-meal (No. 2 reduced to coarse powder). 



5. The thin decorticated cake is a far better and more economic 

 food than the ordinary cake, which is often quite unfit for feeding 

 purposes. 



6. Thick cake scarcely differs in composition from thin cake, 

 but being hard, and 2J to 3 inches thick, it cannot be crushed 

 by an ordinary oil-cake crusher, and therefore presents incon- 

 venience to the consumer. 



7. Genuine oil-meal is simply thick decorticated cake reduced 

 to a coarse powder, and of course has the same composition as the 

 cake from which it is made. 



8. The composition, and with it the nutritive value, of different 

 samples of cotton-cake is subject to considerable variation. 



9. Decorticated cotton-cake and oil-meal, in comparison with 

 other kinds of artificial food, are decidedly cheap feeding ma- 

 terials, and both, no doubt, ere long, will find that favour with 

 the British farmer which a really valuable and cheap article of 

 consumption is certain to command. 



After the foregoing pages were in type, I received a note from 

 Mr. John Fryer, Manor House, Chatteris, enclosing a sample of 

 cotton-cake, and giving a short account of the death of a bullock 

 that had been fed upon the cake and upon mangolds, barley- 

 meal, and clover-hay. Mr. Fryer enclosed the following report 

 of the veterinary surgeon : 



" Surgeon's Post-mortem Examination. 



" Internal and external appearance healthy, nothing inflammatory. Paunch 

 enormously distended with food. The manifold (I speak as butchers speak) 

 crammed and jammed full of substance like tough dough rolled hard and 

 adhering to the folds. Lower stomach quite empty. The duodenum, for 24 

 inches in length, entirely blocked up with two or more pounds of the irregular- 

 shapen concave and comminuted husks. Upon comparing them microscopically 

 with the cake before eaten, they were found to be identical." 



