Annual Beport of the Consulting Chemist for 1883. 363 
If cakes of this kind are given to stock, they should be 
broken up much finer than usual, or, better still, ground into 
a regular meal. 
For comparison with the preceding analyses, I append the 
following three ; one representing the composition of a pure 
linseed-cake of average quality, somewhat poor in oil, the 
second showing the composition of superior linseed-cake, and 
the third that of a pure linseed-cake of the best quality : — 
Composition of Three Pure Linseed-Cakes. 
No. 1. 
No. 2. 
No. 3. 
Oil 
Mucilage, sugar, and digestible fibre 
Indigestible woody fibre (cellulose) . . 
13-25 
10-33 
32 OG 
30-80 
8-2G 
5-30 
12-44 
' 12-16 
29-56 
31-18 
8-67 
5-99 
12- 06 
13- 76 
29-31 
29-96 
10-13 
4-78 
100-00 
100 00 
100-00 
5- 13 
-40 
4-73 
1-29 
4-G9 
•64 
Still more numerous than the complaints about the quality of 
linseed-cake have become of late the complaints respecting the 
bad quality of decorticated cotton-cake ; and during the past 
year several cases were brought under my notice in which decor- 
ticated cotton-cake was alleged to have caused the death of 
fattening bullocks. In every instance in which decorticated 
cotton-cake was reported to me to have done injury to stock, I 
found the cake hard-pressed, poor in oil, unusually rich in 
albuminoids, and full of small bits or lumps, varying in size 
from that of a pea to a hazel-nut, of highly indigestible con- 
solidated cotton-seed meal, which, owing to carelessness in the 
oil-mills, are pressed into the decorticated cotton-cake. Such 
cake, according to my experience, cannot be safely given to 
stock if it be merely broken up into coarse bits by a cake- 
breaker. It ought to be ground to meal, and mixed with Indian 
corn or barley-meal, or any meal rich in starch or other non- 
nitrogenous compounds, and comparatively poor in albuminoids. 
In former years the percentage of oil in American decor- 
ticated cotton-cake was seldom less than 16, and not un- 
frequently rose to 18 and more. 
At present the composition and, with it, the feeding and 
