138 



FOREIGN OIL-CAKE. 



the form of cake, are largely exported from various quarters. 

 And whither are they sent if not to England, the great mart of 

 the world ? Let a cake be taken from every cargo that reaches 

 our ports during a given period and examined, and I expect 

 that scarcely two will be found alike. Now, if they were all 

 made of linseed, they would of course, in some measure, corre- 

 spond. But I much doubt whether even the presence of linseed 

 could be discovered at all in some of them. Samples of cake 

 have been sent to me for examination, and I have seen some 

 tested in which the refuse of linseed was not perceptible, 

 but enough of filthy sediment instead, at the bottom of the 

 vessels. A few months since I paid a visit to one of the first 

 corn-markets in this county, with the view of obtaining inform- 

 ation respecting the quantity of oil-cake consumed in that 

 neiirhbourhood. I was astonished at the enormous amount, 

 which was calculated to exceed the absolute rental of the land. 

 Some of the leading agriculturists assured me that their own 

 consumption exceeded fifty tons each a-year ; that numbers con- 

 sumed much more, even from one to two hundred tons. While 

 conversing upon this subject, I was politely challenged by a 

 merchant to inspect a sample of oil-cake which he had brought 

 that day for sale, and to detect, if I could, anything besides 

 hnseed. "For," said he, ''the maker with whom I deal has all 

 his linseed sifted, so that no other ingredient may be incorpo- 

 rated with it." He placed in my hands, in the presence of a 

 third person, one of the best prepared cakes that I had ever 

 seen ; but on breaking it, innumerable seeds of the sinapimis 

 order were easily distinguished ; he frankly acknowledged his 

 mistake. Nor do I attribute to our merchants in general 

 any intention of palming upon the public a spurious article. 

 The foreigners are the impostors ; the English the dupes. But 

 will British agriculturists any longer expend their millions with 

 foreigners ? Already the eff'ects of the tariff and of the corn- 

 law are felt in the reduction of the price of meat and of barle}^ 

 Now every farmer who fattens his cattle with foreign cake, in- 

 directly becomes himself an importer, and contributes directly 

 to reduce the price of those articles ; for all the meat raised 

 from the use of cake might have been produced from his own 

 corn, the supply at market lessened, and a consequent higher 



