Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 507 



Mr. Henry E. Colton — As regards Mr. Curtis' first point, it is 

 necessary simply, not so much to be near an oil-mill, as to be near 

 certain and cheap transportation to a market where there are mills. 

 The greater portion of the seed used in New York comes from 

 Calcutta, but still a very considerable quantity comes from the south 

 and west. This correspondent is in a thickly settled country, in the 

 neighborhood of several railroads, perhaps near an oil-mill. He can 

 raise flax profitably, and so can any others who have rich lands and 

 are near a cheap line of transportation to a manufacturing market. 

 It is impossible to press flaxseed so as to take out all the oil ; but 

 there is now used by some a French process by which the oil is 

 entirely extracted by treating the cake after pressure with light 

 hydrocarbons or with bisulphide of carbon. When treated by the 

 latter, the cake is considered somewhat better as a fertilizer and by some 

 as a food. I very much doubt if the raw flaxseed, ground and not 

 pressed, would be a safe food for any stock. It is a very strong- 

 laxative, sometimes cathartic. The great trouble with the linseed meal 

 of the present day is, it is too much adulterated. Farmers can 

 avoid this by buying the cake and grinding it themselves. I think it 

 very probable that further west it is easy enough to get pure cake. In 

 the present perfection of the manufacture of oil from cotton seed, the 

 cake from that is as good as linseed. 



In Favor of Clipping Horses. 

 Mr. Henry Stewart read a paper in favor of clipping horses, as 

 follows — That prince of philanthropists, Henry Bergh, has had a bill 

 introduced into the Legislature to prevent the clipping of horses in 

 winter, arguing that this practice is cruel. I don't agree with Mr. 

 Bergh, nor do many others whose opinion ought to be of equal 

 weight with the Legislature to that of this man, who, because he is a 

 philanthropist, undertakes to control the action an8 liberty of men of 

 equal intelligence and possessing as great and pure philanthropy as- 

 himself. In prevention of cruelty to animals, I would go as far a& 

 any man. I have spared the lives of much-abused owls, crows and 

 skunks, and have even encouraged the corn-pulling crows and black- 

 birds and the cherry-eating catbirds and robins ; but I have clipped 

 my horses, and should do it again as a metins of securing their com- 

 fort and preserving their health, unless prevented by such a law as 

 that witll which Mr. Bergh would circumscribe my liberty in so 

 despotic a fashion. Mr. Bergh declares it to be cruel to relieve the 

 norse of the coat which nature has provided for him for his winter 



