234 OIL-CAKE. 



with the powdered cakes, is due to the oily parts of 

 the latter, because they envelop the young germ and 

 exclude it from the air. The farmer who desires to 

 employ oil-cake exclusively for manuring his land 

 must, accordingly, give the preference to those sorts 

 from which the oil has been most completely ex- 

 pressed. The cakes prepared in Saxony contain 

 about one fourth to one sixth of the quantity of oil 

 contained in the seed, and sometimes, more particu- 

 larly in linseed-cake, as much as one third. In Eng- 

 land, the cakes imported from Germany and France 

 should be made, by means of very strong presses, to 

 give up from 4 to 5 per cent, of oil, before they are 

 made use of in manuring the soil. 



2d. Oil' Cake as Provender. 



When oil-cake is employed in foddering" stock, 

 those sorts that are rich in oil must be preferred to 

 those from which it has been more completely with- 

 drawn, since oil, like fatty substances in general, 

 plays an important part in the digestion and nourish- 

 ment of animals, and especially favors their fatten- 

 ing. In England this consideration has been re- 

 cently pushed so far, that linseed, coarsely ground, 

 is used directly for feeding stock ; and many farmers 

 in that country, who have made numerous experi- 

 ments in this respect, assert that the economical 

 advantages attained thereby are greater than those 

 secured by expressing and selling the oil, and using 

 only the cake for purposes of fodder. Here, also, 



