Report of the Consulting Chemist. 
287 
cake or decorticated cotton cake, being' very rich in nitrogen, is 
sometimes used for that purpose, and the blending of the starchy 
matters poor in nitrogen with others abounding in that element 
is so skilfully performed by some notorious cake-crushers, that 
a cake is produced having ahnost precisely the same proximate 
composition as pure linseed cake. It is well to bear this in 
mind, for the fact that an oilcake on analysis shows the same 
percentage of oil, flesh-forming matters, woody fibre, &c., as 
pure linseed cake, is no proof that it may not be, after all, a 
mixed cake, and be composed of materials inferior in taste, 
digestibility, and condition to pure linseed cake. 
Excellent decorticated cotton cake is sent over to England 
from America at the present time. When broken up fine, or, 
better still, when reduced to a coarse powder, decorticated cotton 
cake is a most valuable feeding cake for store cattle, when these 
have to be kept chiefly upon straw-chafF and a few roots. A 
mixture of finely ground cotton cake or meal, linseed cake, and 
Indian Corn or Palm-nut meal in equal proportions, is also well 
adapted for fattening stock ; and for milk cows, good decorticated 
cotton cake is preferred, I believe justly, to the best linseed cake. 
Green German rape, or Rubsen cake, continues to be scarce, 
and ordinary rape cake is often so full of mustard that it en- 
dangers the life of the animals to which it is freely given. 
Common rape cake should therefore never be given to stock 
without having been previously examined for mustard. Most of 
the samples of common rape cake sent for examination I found 
utterly unfit for feeding purposes, and I would especially warn 
the members of the Society not to buy a variety of rape cake 
which has recently found its way into commerce under the name 
of yellow rape cake. Several samples of this species of cake I 
found so pungent that, in my opinion, less than half a cake 
would in all probability kill an ox. 
Satisfactory reports of field experiments on root crops, on 
potatoes, and on grass land, have been received, and will form 
the subject of future contributions to the 'Journal.' I may 
observe, however, in this place, that potash-salts have again 
proved to be very useful, in 1870, for potatoes and mangolds as 
well as for clover seeds; and not only when used upon light 
sandy soils, but likewise when applied in conjunction with 
superphosphate to poor clay land. 
The following are the papers contributed by me to the pages 
of the February and August numbers of the ' Journal ' for 1870 : — 
1. Field Experiments on Mangolds. 
2. On Beetroot Pulji. 
3. On a peculiar kind of Swedish Whey-cheese, and on Norwegian Goat's- 
milk Cheese. 
