CHAP. xii. DECORTICATED AND UNDECORTICATED COTTON-CAKE. 205 



tendency to unduly relax the bowels of cattle ; the husk contains an 

 astringent property which corrects the aperient effects' of the grass. 

 Neither of these kinds of cotton cake is suitable for young animals. 



An important question, but one upon which practical farmers are 

 not agreed, is whether decorticated or undecorticated cake is the 

 better form in which to make use of the refuse cotton seed for the 

 purpose of feeding stock. Both, it is admitted, are valuable and 

 economical foods, but some feeders maintain that the undecorticated 

 or common cotton-cake is the safer and better to use, because it is 

 free from the hardness and indigestible lumps which too often charac- 

 terise the decorticated cake, and because the husk left in it imparts a 

 wholesome astringency to the diet. Others who have had experience 

 of the decorticated cake are ready, on the contrary, to maintain that, 

 if reasonable precaution be exercised, and the worst class of cake be 

 avoided, there is no difficulty in feeding with it, and that it will amply 

 repay the trouble and give a decidedly better result. 



Experiments bearing upon the question are described in a paper 

 upon " The Comparative Feeding Values of Decorticated and Unde- 

 corticated Cotton-Cake, " which Dr. J. A. Voelcker contributed to the 

 " Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society," 1891. At the Royal 

 Agricultural Society's Experimental Farm at Woburn, eight Hereford 

 bullocks, three years old, were divided into two lots of four each, the 

 total weight of each lot being the same. Both lots received the same 

 quantities of grittled barley and of linseed cake, whilst Lot I. had 

 decorticated cotton-cake, and Lot II. an equal weight of undecorticated 

 cotton-cake. In addition, they were allowed as much roots (swedes 

 first, mangel later) and hay chaff as the} r would eat. The experiment 

 lasted 145 days, at the end of which period it was found that the 

 animals of each lot had eaten, per head per day, as follows : 



Lot I. Lot II. 



Dec. cake Undec. cake 



Ib. Ib. 



Cotton-cake .... 3 '30 3*30 



Linseed-cake 

 Barley (grittled) 

 Roots . 

 Hay-chaff . 

 Water . 



2-88 2-88 



4-00 4-00 



40-00 40-34 



8-88 8.88 



36-30 27-61 



It is instructive to notice that the animals in each lot ate identical 

 quantities of hay and within one-third of a pound of the same quantity 

 of roots per day, although the supplies of these two fodders were 

 unlimited. During the entire period, Lot I. increased in weight at 

 the rate of 2'21 Ib. per head per day, and Lot II. at the rate of only 

 1*97 Ib., the difference of 0'24 Ib. per head per day in the increase 

 denoting the superiority of decorticated over undecorticated cotton- 

 cake, this being the only difference in the rations consumed. It was 

 calculated that, for feeding purposes alone, and omitting manurial 

 value (which would put the balance still more in favour of the decorti- 

 cated cake), decorticated cotton-cake is fully worth 50s. a ton more 

 than undecorticated cotton-cake. 



This experiment was repeated the next year with Shorthorn bullocks 



