Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist. 
IS!) 
in reality what they profess to be. This is by no means the 
result of my experience, for I regret to say the reprehensible 
practice of oilcrushers and cake-dealers to sell genuine linseed- 
cakes, and even cakes branded " pure," which arc made from 
dirty unscreened linseed, after having received a temporary 
check, is again on the increase. As repeatedly stated in former 
Reports, linseed as "imported" is often very foul, and many 
cargoes, especially cargoes shipped from the Baltic to Hull, 
contain from 15 to over 30 per cent, of small weed-seeds, broken 
grain, and dirt ; and in some samples of linseed " genuine as 
imported," I have found more than 50 per cent, of dirt and 
worthless foreign seeds. 
Linseed-cake, which is made from linseed as imported, there- 
fore may be, and, as a matter of fact, frequently is, cake which 
in point of nutritive quality and commercial value is not to be 
compared with cake made from well-screened linseed. Such in- 
ferior cakes, although they are made from linseed as imported, 
should not be sold as " genuine linseed-cakes," for a mixture 
of linseed with 20 or 30 or 50 per cent, of foreign weed-seeds, 
sweepings of granaries and similar rubbish, as the case may be, 
cannot be called " genuine," and by making a discrimination 
between "pure" and " genuine" linseed-cake the door is at once 
opened to fraud. There is no difficulty whatever in separating 
the small foreign weed-seeds and fine sand and earth which 
occur in most unscreened samples of linseed ; nor in pressing 
into " pure linseed-cake," seed which, although not absolutely 
free from foreign seeds, does not contain more than 4 to 5 per 
cent, of impurities. 
Many cakes have passed through my hands made from dirty 
linseed as imported, and sold as " genuine." These I do not 
hesitate to denounce as much inferior to adulterated linseed- 
cakes made from clean linseed with an admixture of from 30 
to 40 per cent, of bran and pollard, or a similar percentage of 
rice-meal, Indian corn, or other wholesome farinaceous meals. 
It is greatly to be regretted that many farmers will not give 
the price at which it is possible for oilcrushers and dealers to 
sell really pure linseed-cake. For the sake of an additional 5s. 
or 10s. a ton many a farmer runs the risk of buying, instead of a 
pure linseed-cake, an inferior article made from unscreened dirty 
seed, and which, although it may be nominally 10s. cheaper than 
pure linseed-cake, in reality often is worth from 30s. to 21. less 
per ton than the necessarily higher priced pure cake. 
I have before me a circular of a Hull firm in which about a 
dozen kinds of " pure linseed-cakes," mostly distinguished by 
various brands, were offered for sale in the month of September 
of the current year (1876), at prices varying from 9^. 7s. Qd. to 
