Adulteration of Oilcakes. 
591 
samples are made and sold to a few firms tliat make pure linseed-cake, 
and have good customers who can afford to pay a proper price. The 
impurities are sifted out and made into second, third, and fourth 
qualities, which then are sold under various names. 
Now, if the seeds that occur in linseed were all of an indifferent 
quality, that is to say of a character not injurious to life, the injury 
woiild not be so great, but some of them are poisonous. From several 
samples of linseed I have separated the seeds and ascertained their 
botanical characters. In one particular sample I counted not less than 
29 different kinds of weed-seeds, and among them the following which 
are more or less injurious : The common darnel, which is frequently 
l>resent in considerable quantities in the inferior samples of Peters- 
bui'g seed ; corn-cockle, which often produces very serious effects on 
the animal system ; wild radish, which occurs in some samples of 
Alexaudi'ian seeds, and is very pungent ; wild rape, which is not, pro- 
perly speaking, a rape, but rather a mustard ; charlock, or the common 
wild mustard. All these are seeds which it is positively known are 
injurious to the health of animals. But there are others which, as I 
stated at the beginning, impart a disagi-eeable taste to the meat of 
cattle fed upon inferior cakes. The Gold of Pleasure, or Camelina 
sativa, is such a seed, giving a disagreeable taste and also a deep 
yellow colour to the fat of animals. From the appearance of Camelina 
cake, you would think it ought to be nutritious ; but it is an inferior 
description of cake, because it deteriorates the quality of the meat. 
Another seed of an injurious character is the purging flax. 
Now, a good and genuine linseed-cake ought to have a bright 
coloui', and when mixed with water ought to form a thick, agreeable- 
tasting, and pleasant-smelling jelly ; but a very disagreeable smell is 
developed, if you mix with water an inferior cake, like that of a cage 
in which you keep canary-birds. This is due to the impurities of the 
seeds. Among others, the common spui-ry and hempseed, which 
occur in very inferior cake, impart a very disagreeable taste. You 
may readily test this by the taste and the smell. When linseed-cake 
has been kept for a length of time, its mucilaginous properties more 
or less disappear. Mucilage is a substance that is very apt to spoil 
when kept in a damp place. If a cake does not become gelatinous on 
being mixed with water, it is not one of the best descriptions ; but 
then the reverse does not follow as a matter of course. A cake may 
become gelatinous, and yet be inferior. Wild mustard and rapeseed 
very commonly occur in inferior linseed ; when such cakes are mixed 
with water a more or less pimgent smell of mustard is developed. I 
may observe, in passing, that rapecake ought always to be tested in 
this manner ; for rapecake, especially that which is sold as Indian 
seed, very generally contains a large amovmt of mustard seeds, and 
becomes so pungent that it is extremely injurious to cattle. I have 
here a sample of a cake sent to me for examination not long ago, 
^rhich had killed three oxen. It is a rapecake of the description just 
named — Indian rapecake containing a good deal of wild mustard. 
Good cake, when examined by an ordinary pocket lens, ought to 
exhibit nothing but the husk of the linseed. When it is made into a 
YOL. XXIV. 2 Q 
