Kidd V. Royal Agricultural Society of England. 525 
Q. In order to form a judgraeafc you would submit it to a microscopical 
examination ? — A. Exactly so. 
Q. Did this cake that you examined disclose a different proportion of 
mucilage ? — No, it did not. 
Q. Did you compare the proportion of mucilage in this cake, together with 
some pure cake by the same operation ? — A. I did. 
Q. And was there a great diSerence between the two? — A. A great dif- 
ference. Pure linseed becomes very mucilaginous, and this cake did not 
become so. 
Q. Do you see any reason to alter the judgment which you came to on the 
2nd of March, as stated in the report you made to the Society ? — A. I see no 
reason for altering it, and it is confirmed by many cases that we have had. 
Q. You have heard in evidence what happened to these beasts? — A. Yes. 
Q. In your judgment miijht that be caused by giving them cake of this 
description ? — A. Oh, it might be caused by that. 
Mr. Setmottr : You say the symptoms from which these beasts were suf- 
fering might be what ? — A. I replied to the question. 
Q. What did you say ? — A. This cake might have caused the death of the 
animals. 
Q. Was there anything in their symptoms which might not be referable 
to other causes, so far as the symptoms were concerned, than the taking of 
deleterious cake ? — A. Certainly, there might be other causes. 
Q. Sudden change of food under certain circumstances, especially in the 
case of cattle who had been taken o£f grass and had been stall-fed — is not 
that frequently attended by distension, distress, moaning, shivering, and the 
other symptoms we have heard of here ? — A. Well, perhaps, you would better 
address those questions to Professor Simonds who is a veterinary surgeon — I 
am not. 
Q. Are you the author of a paper or an article in the ' Journal of the 
Eoyal Agricultural Society of England ' of this year, from which I will just 
read you a passage, I see your name is to it : — " In a report on the samples of 
feeding-cakes, submitted to me during the past twelvemonths, I should not 
omit to state that five or six cases have been reported to me, in which de- 
corticated cotton-cake was alleged to have caused the death of sheep and 
lambs, and to have seriously injured the health of others. The examina- 
tion, however, of the cotton-cakes, which were supposed to have done the 
mischief, showed that they did not contain any poisonous ingredient, and that 
several of the specimens were cakes of the finest quality ever submitted to 
me for examination. These cakes contained over 40 per cent, of albuminous 
compounds, and as they were as fresh and palatable as a nut, I have little 
doubt that the animals who suffered in health partook too freely of them, 
and were unable properly to digest the large proportion of nitrogenous com- 
pounds which first quality decorticated cotton-cake contains. In point of 
fact, good decorticated cotton-cake is too rich in nitrogenous matters to suit 
well by itself the constitution of herbivorous animals, and I would, therefore, 
strongly recommend its being mixed with Indian corn or a similar starchy 
food, comparatively poor in nitrogenous matters." It may be, therefore, that 
symptoms which you find, and which are supposed to indicate a poisonous 
ingredient in a cake, may be referable to the fact that the cattle have too 
greedily eaten of a pure cake ? — A. It is like eating too much beef-steak. 
Mr. JOHN THOMAS WAY sworn : examined hy Mr. Mellok, 
Q. Are you a Fellow of the Chemical Society ? — A, Yes. 
Q. Were you professor of chemistiy for some time to the Agricultural Col- 
lege of Cirencester ? — A. Yes, I was, lor some years. 
