Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist. 
295 
I have next to report a case of injury done to stock by ergotized 
grass, brought under my notice by Mr. Richard Garrett, Carleton 
Hall, Saxmundham, who wrote to me on the 28th of September, 
1875 :— 
My dear Sir, — We have been having bullocks die on some of the marshes 
near here, without being able to discover the cause of death ; one died last 
Saturday suddenly ; it appeared to be healthy and well on Friday, and was 
found dead on Saturday. 
On careful examination, the stomach and intestines exhibited every symptom 
of having been poisoned. 
Carefully inspecting the marsh on which the bullock had been, a few stalks 
of grass were found with some excrescence, similar to ergot of rye, and some 
of the same kind of seeds could be seen in the stomach and paunch of the 
dead bullock. 
I enclose herewith a few of these grass seeds I allude to ; I shall be glad if 
you vvill inform me if this is ergot, as, if it is, it will explain a great deal that 
has been a mystery to graziers in these parts for the last few months. 
Yours very traly, 
To Dr. VoeJcker. Eichard Gakbett. 
The specimens sent by Mr. Garrett were readily recognised 
by me as ergot.* 
I have frequently directed the attention of members to the 
indigestibility of the coarsely ground cotton-seed husks, which 
are often found in badly made whole-seed cotton-cakes, and the 
injury which such cakes do to stock, especially when fed upon 
dry food without a sufficient allowance of succulent food, such 
as roots or grass. Nevertheless, not a year passes in which I do 
not receive for examination samples of cotton-cake, alleged to be 
poisonous. In the past year, again, several instances of injury 
to stock by cotton-cake — one case terminating fatally — were 
brought under my notice. No poison, however, was detected in 
the cakes sent for analysis ; and the injury which they un- 
doubtedly did to cattle was clearly traced to the coarse con- 
dition and consequent indigestibility of the cotton-seed husks in 
them. 
Decorticated cotton-cake, likewise, is rather indigestible, and 
should be broken up finer than is usual with linseed-cake. 
Better still it is to reduce the decorticated cotton-cake to powder, 
and to mix the meal, which contains as much as 40 to .41 per 
cent, of albuminous compounds, with Indian corn or rice-meal, 
or other farinaceous meals, comparatively poor in those nitro- 
genous compounds. 
Cotton-cake meal is occasionally sent from America, and, if 
fresh and in good condition, is a useful and more handy concen- 
* For further information on this subject, see a paper, " On Ergot," by W. 
Carruthers, F.R.S., Consulting Botanist to the Society, in Vol.x., Part 2, page 443, 
of he second series of this ' Journal.' 
