OIL-CAKE. 227 



because it is requisite to continue the action of heat 

 for several hours in order to consume the whole gel- 

 atine ; and from this circumstance the differences 

 that are developed between good and bad specimens 

 are much smaller, and consequently less palpable and 

 clear, than in the various sorts of guano. 



X. OIL-CAKE. 



England imports at the present day nearly 

 1,500,000 cwt. of oil-cake for the purposes of feed- 

 ing her cattle and fertilizing her fields. Of this 

 amount Germany contributes full one fourth, and 

 France at least half. In this way alone 400,000 

 cwt. of provender and manure are annually lost to 

 German agriculture, which, if used exclusively as a 

 means of manure, might yield, at the lowest esti- 

 mate, 600,000 Saxon bushels of rye, besides a corre- 

 sponding quantity of straw. Were this oil-cake 

 employed, again, simply as fodder, at least 80,000 

 cwt. of meat, in addition to some 450,000 bushels 

 of rye, etc. obtained from the surplusage by its 

 conversion to manure, might also be produced. If 

 this produce is valued at an extremely low price 

 (1 Saxon bushel of rye at 9^., the straw at one 

 fourth of the pecuniary value of the grain, and 1 lb. 

 of meat at 5id.), it follows that the oil-cake exported 



