Kidd V. Royal Agricultural Society of England. 547 
Q. Quite so, and I suppose it is by hypothesis, as far as the quantity is 
concerned. When you say, for instance, that doddur and darnel are poisonous, 
I suppose it would depend upon whether they were present in sufficient de- 
gree to operate as poisons ? — A. I do not attach much importance to those 
things. We can only judge of certain things by their effects. Neither the 
microscope nor chemistry will throw very much liglit upon certain things, as 
you are probably aware. 
Q. I will take darnel ; that is a narcotic ? — A. Yes. 
Q. I suppose it would require a considerable portion of darnel to act in- 
juriously on an animal ? — A. Of course it would in itself. 
Q. And a small quantity of darnel would not be calculated to produce 
itympanitis ? — A. Not in itself. 
' Q. Take dodder. Is not dodder-cake a popular article of food on the 
Continent and in parts of England.? — A. I do not know that it is. I do not 
think dodder is proiiuced (I am not speaking from my own knowledge, but 
this is my impression) in sufficient quantities to be made into a cake, cither 
on the Continent or in England. But you have Professor Voelcker here who 
will answer that question in a minute. 
Professor VOELCKER re-called : examined by Mr. Setmoue. 
Q. Do you know of dodder-cake being used on the Continent.?'—^, It is, 
.as food. 
I Q. For cattle ?—A. Yes. 
Cross-examination of Professor SIMONDS continued. 
Q. This darnel being, as far as it goes, only a narcotic, and having just 
heard from Dr. Voelcker that the dodder is used for food, let me ask you this, 
you have instanced those two things, surely you would not attribute the death 
of the cattle to either of them ? — A. I do not, I never have. 
^ Q. Well, suppose I could prove to you that this cake which they got was a 
nutritious and sound linseed-cake ; suppose I prove that it contained a pro- 
portion of 50 per cent, of purest Calcutta linseed, that it contained a propor- 
tion of about 30 of pure sesame cake, such as we have heard of yesterday as 
being used as a wholesome food, and the result of making oil for the use of 
man, and that the remainder was pure good bran, would you say, under those 
circumstances, that that was a bad food for cattle? — A. I should not say it 
was a bad Ibod for cattle ; but, nevertheless, I should say that, so far as this 
individual cake, whatever its composition maj' be, is concerned, it contains 
something, which when it was exposed to the action of the secretion of the 
rumen was liberated from it, and had a deleterious effect on the nervous sys- 
tem. You know here are sixty animals, as we had proved from the feeders 
yesterday, all of which had a certain quantity of the cake given them, and 
upon all of which a certain effect is produced. It is not coincidence, it is con- 
sequence — must be. 
Q. Oh, then, you are governed by the fact of the supposed effect ? — A. Of 
course I am. 
Q. Have you at all considered this, tliat it was, as a rule, one beast out of 
each of the three in each stall that was the worst ?—A. Exactly, it would be 
,in proportion to their idiosyncrasy, and the quantity that they would eat. 
But then one person may eat a pound of beefsteak, and another can only eat 
half-a-pound. 
Q. If there was poison enough to kill in that cake, would not you expect to 
find some of it in the contents of the rumen or the stomach ? — A. Certainly 
not, if it were a vegetable twison. 
2 N 2 
