Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist for 1879. 31f)' 
nutritious, outer husks of rice, or rice-shells, which have hardly 
any nutritive value, for they consist mainly of indigestible 
woody fibre, coated with fine silica. This explains the largo 
amount of silica in the ash of the rice-meal, and its poverty in 
flesh-forming matters and digestible non-nitrogenous compounds. 
The meal was sent to me for analysis because it produced a bad 
effect upon young stock, and was supposed to contain some 
poisonous constituents. However, I found it free from any 
decidedly prejudicial ingredient, but of course had to pronounce 
it to be quite unfit for supporting the health and good condition 
of young stock. 
Whilst speaking of feeding-meals, I would call attention ta 
linseed-meal. When buying linseed-meal it should be remem- 
bered that linseed-cake reduced to powder, and not linseed 
crushed to meal, as might be expected, constitutes linseed- 
meal. A sample of linseed-meal recently examined by mc 
was sold at Liverpool at 10/. bs. per ton, at a time when, 
pure linseed-cake could be bought in the same city at 9Z. 95. 
a ton. 
Another sample, sold as crushed linseed at 8/. 10s. per ton. 
had the following composition : — 
Moisture 12 -GO 
Oil 3-50 
*Albuminous compounds (flesh-forming matters) .. 31 '93 
Mucilage and digestible fibre 36 "72 
Indigestible woody fibre (cellulose) 9 'SO 
Mineral matter (ash) 5*45 
100-00 
* Containing nitrogen 5* 11 
Crushed linseed contains from 30 to 38 per cent, of oil, and 
good linseed-cake from 10 to 12 per cent., whereas the sample 
of crushed linseed analysed by me contained only 3^ per cent. 
It is evident, therefore, that the meal in question was not crushed 
linseed, nor even ordinary linseed-cake reduced to powder ; for 
it is impossible to deprive linseed by pressure so thoroughly of 
its oil as to leave only 3J per cent, in the press-cake, and it 
appears that the meal was not crushed linseed, nor ordinary 
linseed-cake reduced to meal, but crushed linseed, from which 
nearly the whole of the oil had been extracted by chemical 
means, probably by bisulphide of carbon. 
It has been frequently noticed by farmers that horses and 
cattle prefer foul stagnant pond-water, visibly impregnated with 
the drainage from dunghills or farmyards, to clear pure water, 
