198 DESCRIPTION OF FEEDING STUFFS 
Linseed meal may be fed safely to all classes of farm animals; 
generally speaking, it is one of the most desirable stock feeds avail- 
able. Flaxseed contains a glucoside, linamarin, which, with fer- 
ments, may yield prussic acid; but it is, as a rule, present in only 
minute quantities, and but few cases of ill effects from its use as a 
stock feed are on record. The cost of the more starchy factory by- 
products makes them, in general, relatively cheaper sources of pro- 
tein than oil meal, but the latter may be fed to advantage in smaller 
quantities even under these conditions, on account of the medicinal 
properties as a regulator of the system, and for its stimulating 
effects on the appetite of the animals and their general feeling of 
well-being. 
The quantities to be fed daily will depend on the relative cost 
of oil meal and other concentrates. If the market prices of the 
latter feeds are such as to admit of economical feeding of large 
quantities of oil meal, the following amounts may be fed per head 
daily without injurious effects: Horses, 1 pound; milch cows and 
fattening steers, 3 pounds; fattening sheep and hogs, 1 pound, the 
quantities fed being increased toward the end of the fattening 
period ; calves and lambs, 14 pound or less. Where the production of 
high-grade butter is the object sought, not more than one pound 
of oil meal should be fed, since the quality of the butter is apt to 
suffer when larger quantities are fed, especially if given with corn 
or other feeds having a similar softening effect on the butter. 
Calves are generally fed boiled flaxseed rather than oil meal, espe- 
cially until they are about two months old, unless the price of the 
seed is almost prohibitive, as sometimes happens. Oil meal may 
advantageously be fed to swine as a slop, a pailful of meal being 
stirred into a barrel of skim milk and left over night; the mixture 
will form a thick, almost solid mass in the morning, which will be 
greatly relished by swine. Fed to poultry in small quantities, a 
tablespoonful to each hen a few times per week, it will brighten the 
plumage, invigorate the system, and promote laying. 
Cotton-seed meal is the ground residue obtained in the manu- 
facture of cotton-seed oil; the oil is expressed by pressure as in old- 
process linseed meal. The cake is generally ground into a fine 
meal for the trade in the eastern and central States, while for the 
western States and Europe it is broken into pieces of about nut or 
pea size, which are readily eaten by cattle; for sheep the cake is, 
as a rule, coarsely pulverized. There are two kinds of cotton-seed 
meal on the market, viz., decorticated, made from seed the hulls of 
which are largely removed before the extraction of the oil, and the 
