Annual Report for 1893 of the Consulting Chemist. 805 
setting out clearly the nature of the material sold, and, in the case 
of a fertiliser, its guaranteed analysis as well. Moreover, as regards 
feeding cake3, &c., it will be necessary in futui’e for a vendor to 
declare that a cake called by a name such as linseed cake, cotton 
cake, &c., shall be made only with the seed denominated by the 
name used, and shall, when described by the name of the seed, be 
taken to be “ pure,” i.e., unmixed with any other seed or seeds. 
Hence, “ linseed cake ” will in future mean “ pure linseed cake,” and 
not be taken, as it often is now, as synonymous with oil cake. 
In justice to high-class trading firms it must be said that they 
will welcome rather than oppose such legislation, and it will 
undoubtedly give the farmer greater facilities for obtaining that for 
which he has contracted. It is, I am convinced, more amongst 
the small traders and those who keep up running accounts with the 
farmers, on long credit, that the greatest scope exists for the practice 
of adulteration. And, though legislation has been introduced, it 
will need as much vigilance as ever to ensure that the right article 
is purchased and that it is correctly described on the invoice now 
obliged to be given with the purchase. 
The past year has not been remarkable for any great fluctuations 
in the prices of either manures or feeding stuffs, nor have any 
specially fresh articles been introduced ; but it has once more to be 
chronicled that, amid the many causes of complaint which he has, the 
farmer cannot well find fault with either the prices or the quality 
of what he has been able to buy from high-class firms. 
The most prominent new forms of adulteration, or of misrepresen- 
tation, brought to the notice of the Chemical Committee have been 
as follows : — 
The sale of a material called “ slag ” to farmers, they thinking 
that they are thereby purchasing “ basic slag ” ; the sale, under the 
description of “ Dissolved Bones,” or “ Dissolved Bones made under 
a new process,” of a manure not dissolved at all, but akin to boiled 
or steamed bones ; the adulteration of linseed cake with rice oil ; 
and the occurrence of sand in some quantity in undecorticated 
cotton cakes. 
These will be severally noted when considering the respective 
heads under which the materials in the following summary are 
grouped. 
Linseed Cakes. 
Purity of Cakes . — Little or no difficulty has been experienced in 
respect of adjudicating on the question of “ purity” in these cakes, 
the definition of a pure cake as laid down in the Journal, Vol. 
XXIV. (1888), pp. 300, 301, having worked admirably, and having 
given rise to no real dispute whatever, or to any conflict of opinion 
between chemists. 
The difficulty, however, has been to get farmers to insist on 
having cake invoiced to them as linseed cake, and too often the mis- 
leading name oil cake has been substituted on the invoice, even 
when linseed cake has been specifically ordered. 
