The Purchase of Feeding Stuffs. 



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ground decorticated cotton cake the whole will approximate 

 in composition to good linseed cake. 



Cakes. 



There are many kinds of cattle cake, but four only are 

 commonly used in this country: — Linseed cake, decorticated 

 cotton cake, undecorticated cotton cake, and mixed or com- 

 pound cakes. 



Regarded as a group of feeding-stuffs, cakes may be con- 

 sidered as highly concentrated albuminoid or flesh-forming 

 foods. For this reason, they supply the deficient feeding 

 material where consumed with a diet of straw and roots, 

 which are essentially carbohydrate or heat-producing 

 foods. Where the straw is replaced by hay the concentrated 

 food need not be so highly albuminoid in character, and, 

 in that case, cereal grains may often be economically substi- 

 tuted, partially or entirely, for cake. 



Next to albuminoids the most important ingredient in 

 cake is oil, and the price of certain sorts of cake is often 

 largely controlled by the percentage of oil present. It is 

 well known that oil is not equally valuable from whatever 

 source it is derived, and it is important that all the oil in a 

 cake should be the natural product of the seed from which 

 the cake takes its name. This is a matter to which farmers, 

 but especially chemists, should give their attention, as there 

 is a strong temptation to increase the percentage of oil in 

 cake by the addition of a cheap mineral oil that may have no 

 feeding value. Thus in a linseed cake the whole of the 

 oil present should be linseed oil. That the fattening 

 capabilities of a cake are to some extent due to the oil there 

 can be no doubt, as experiments upon sheep in this country 

 have clearly showed the superiority of cakes rich in oil over 

 others poor in this ingredient ; but farmers should be care- 

 ful that the extra percentage of oil in a cake is not purchased 

 at too high a rate. 



Linseed and cotton cakes contain no starch or sugar, the 

 carbohydrates being represented by mucilage and cellulose. 

 The amount of these present in such cakes is of minor import- 

 ance compared with the albuminoids and oil, because the 



