Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist for 1885. 319 
nevertheless of opinion that, however desirable a cake with such 
a high percentage of oil may be for the last stages of fattening 
off stock, or for enabling more material of a somewhat indi- 
gestible nature to be mixed with the cake, jet for ordinary 
feeding purposes a cake with a somewhat smaller quantity of 
oil, say 11 to 12 per cent., will be found more generally useful 
and profitable. 
Decorticated Cotton-cakes. — While linseed-cake has shown so 
much improvement, the reverse is the case with decorticated 
cotton-cake; and if the present deterioration continues, it bids 
fair to bring this most valuable feeding material into general 
disfavour. It cannot be denied that at the present time it is a 
matter of the greatest difficulty to get a decorticated cotton-cake 
which can be safely given to stock. The excessive hardness, 
the constant occurrence in the cake of indigestible stone-like 
lumps, to which I have frequently alluded in my Reports, and 
the now further lessening of the percentage of oil, through the 
adoption of more powerful means for its extraction, must cause 
a general distrust of this kind of cake. It is not here a ques- 
tion of price, for my experience tells me that good and bad quali- 
ties sell at the same prices ; and it is only a matter of surprise 
that some of our English makers who import the whole cotton-seed 
do not set up the necessary machinery for making the decorti- 
cated as well as the undecorticated cake. A ready market 
would be found, I believe, for a much larger sale of this valuable 
food among many who are now afraid to use it. The only way 
out of the difficulty has been to grind the hard cake, and many 
farmers, who have no mill of their own to do the work, have 
been induced to buy the meal, already ground, at an advance of 
about lOs. a ton above the price of the cake. I have, however, 
found that the meals so sold are, as a general rule, of very 
inferior quality, having been made from the very hardest cakes, 
which there was probably little chance of selling as whole cake. 
Towards the close of 1884, and until about March, 1885, it 
was quite possible to get cakes with from 15 to 20 per cent, 
of oil ; but after the latter date in but a very few cases did the 
samples analysed show 15 per cent, or over, the general average 
sinking to 12 per cent., and often below this. Were the lessen- 
ing of the oil the only feature it would not matter so much ; 
but the extreme hardness and lumpiness, consequent on the 
excessive pressure used, introduce elements of danger in feeding 
which one cannot too carefully be warned against. 
The following are analyses of some cakes and meals 
showing low percentages of oil : — 
