JOURNAL 
OF THE 
ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 
OF ENGLAND. 
I. — On the Characters of Pure and Mixed Linseed- Cakes. 
By Dr. Augustus Voelcker, F.R.S, 
In the course of a long experience in examining feeding 
materials of every description, oilcakes have been brought 
under my notice, ranging in quality from fine pure linseed-cake 
down to compounds of all kinds of refuse matters pressed into 
cake, with a little linseed, and hardly deserving the name of 
oilcake. During a single year from 150 to over 200 samples 
of various kinds of feeding cakes and meals are usually submitted 
to me for examination. 
The annual and quarterly Reports issued by the Chemical 
Committee of the Royal Agricultural Society afford abundant 
evidence of the prevalence of endeavours to induce the farmer 
to buy mixed in preference to pure linseed-cakes. This system 
unfortunately finds too much encouragement in the inclina- 
tion of many agriculturists to buy cakes at prices at which it is 
impossible to produce genuine linseed-cakes. 
Notwithstanding frequent public exposures, and the known 
danger which the buyer of cheap cakes runs of injuring the 
health of his stock, it is a notorious fact that in many markets 
really " Pure Linseed-Cake " is an almost unsaleable commodity ; 
and inferior, mixed, and adulterated cakes are freely bought on 
account of the temptingly low prices at which they are offered. 
Many cakes improperly sold as linseed-cakes, at prices varying 
from 21. to 31. below the market price of pure linseed-cake, have 
but little in common with the genuine article ; for they contain 
only a little linseed, artfully squeezed into cake with earth-nut, 
cotton, beech-nut, rape, and other feeding cakes, together with 
bran, rice-husks, oat-dust, and a host of other materials to which 
reference will be made in this paper. 
VOL. TX.— S. S. B 
