768 Annual Report for 1894 of the Consulting Chemist. 
had been feeding on the cake had to be slaughtered. The vendors of 
the cake admitted its bad condition, and the liability incurred. 
In a second case, the cake again being full of wool, animals to 
which it was given refused to eat it. 
In a third instance, though the cake was sold as “ Pure Egyptian 
cotton cake,” it was found not only to contain a great deal of wool, 
but also actual pieces of rope crushed along with the cake. 
The presence of an excessive quantity of wool, owing to imperfect 
cleaning of the seed, constitutes, in my opinion, ample ground 
for considering such a cake “ impure,” and I shall, in future, 
report accordingly. 
Decorticated Cotton Cake. 
Decorticated cotton cake has been very free from adulteration, 
and though generally not nearly as soft as one would like to have it, 
the demand for any that comes over to this country is very great, 
and the deliveries are rapidly snapped up. At this I am not at all 
surprised, after the experience gained in the Woburn Feeding Experi- 
ments on the economical value of this kind of cake. One sample of 
cake analysed by me I found to contain no less than 8 - 42 per cent, of 
nitrogen. The high manurial value of such a cake, as compared 
with ocher foods used on the farm, must be very apparent. The 
unfortunately often corresponding hardness can be met by exposing 
the cake to the air for some time before using, and then breaking it 
up finely. 
Compound Cakes, Feeding Meals, &c. 
I have already commented on several points regarding the rela- 
tively high prices at which these mixed foods are frequently sold, and 
on certain disadvantages that may attend their use. 
In one recent instance I found castor-oil bean present in a com- 
pound feeding cake, and after careful investigation this was proved 
to have come in by the use, as one of the ingredients, of foreign cake, 
good in itself, but which had been crushed in a mill in which castor 
seed had previously been ground. Several valuable bullocks died 
from eating the cake in question. 
Lathyrus sativus as an Ingredient of Mixed Feeding Cakes. 
I have on several previous occasions referred to cases in which I 
have traced injury caused to stock to the occurrence in some of the 
food given to them of seeds of the vetchling Lathyrus sativus, a seed 
known in India to frequently produce harmful effects, and giving rise 
to a particular condition called “ lathyrismus.” When I was in 
India in 1889-90 I inquired carefully into this matter, and during 
the past year have come across several fresh cases of poisoning 
through the use of this particular seed. In the spring of this year 
I collected the information on the subject in the form of a paper 
which I read before the Society of Public Analysts, and which is 
published in the Analyst for May 1894. In one instance two milk 
