204 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK i. 



any such standard figure it is necessary, therefore, to add the qualifica- 

 tion that the impurities shall be (1) quite harmless, and (2) only those 

 incidental to the seed. With regard to impurities incidental to culti- 

 vation, I am confident that, were crushers to insist upon having a high 

 quality of seed, inducement would be given to the cultivator of it to be 

 more careful than he is at present. The fact of there being a ready 

 sale for linseed containing a considerable percentage of foreign seeds, 

 dirt, &c., has done more than anything else to raise the quantity of 

 so-called ' incidental ' impurities of linseed. Were the crusher only to 

 buy seed of high standard and to use reasonable precautions in screen- 

 ing it before crushing, there would, I believe, be no difficult}' in producing 

 a cake which could rightly be termed 'pure.' 



"Against sophistication of any kind, whether to the extent of 5 per 

 cent, or even less, the agricultural chemist must set his face firmly, 

 and not hesitate to condemn it wherever he has reason to believe it 

 has occurred. To decide whether the presence of rape in a cake is an 

 incidental impurity or a positive admixture is, of course, a most 

 knotty point ; but it has been clearly shown to me that it can be done. 



" Perhaps the only constituent of linseed-cake to which a definite 

 figure may be given as a standard is the sand ; for it must be apparent 

 to every one that this ingredient, which is quite valueless as food, and 

 if present in excessive quantity may indeed be injurious, has to be 

 paid for just as if it had been linseed. If good-quality seed has been 

 used, and screening has been conducted with reasonable care, there 

 should, I think, certainly not be more than from 1'5 to 2 per cent, 

 of sand, and there might well be less than even the lower figure, as in 

 the case of the linseed cakes of which I have given the analysis. There 

 remains but one point more, and that is the necessity of a proviso that 

 the cake should be made from sound seed, and be delivered in good 

 merchantable condition. 



" To sum up these conclusions, the following are the essentials for 

 a linseed cake being considered a pure one : 



" (1) That it be made from sound seed of not less than 95 per cent, 

 purity, subsequently well screened. 



" (2) That it contain no ingredients of a poisonous or deleterious 

 nature. 



" (3) That it be entirely free from sophistication of any kind. 



" (4) That it contain not more than 2 per cent, of sand. 



" (5) That it be sold in good, merchantable condition." 



Decorticated Cotton Cake is a most useful article for fattening cattle, 

 even superior to linseed-cake in nutritive value, while the value of the 

 manurial residue from it is higher than that from anything else. The 

 writer believes that no other kind of manure, either natural or artificial, 

 can produce such heavy crops of grass. But cattle will not eat it so 

 freely as they will eat linseed-cake, and it is a good plan to mix with 

 it an equal quantity of the last named. It is also less in price than 

 linseed-cake, though not so much as it was before farmers had dis- 

 covered its value as a feeding stuff. 



Undecorticated cotton cake is useful on land whose herbage has a 



