Extracts from British, and Foreign Journals. 
ON THE COMPOSITION AND NUTRITIVE VALUE OF 
COTTON-CAKE. 
By Augustus Voelcker. 
An important addition to our stock of feeding materials has 
recently been made in the shape of cotton-cake. This cake 
can now be bought according to its quality, at from 6/. to 81. 
per ton, and appears to offer considerable economic advan¬ 
tages to the feeder of stock in comparison with other descrip¬ 
tions of cake. Several agriculturists, who have used it in 
limited quantity, speak favorably of its nutritive properties, 
but precise comparative feeding experiments are yet required 
before the practical value of cotton-cake, and its relative 
merits, in comparison with linseed and other descriptions of 
cake, can be determined with certainty. To my knowledge 
it is now being tried on a large scale in various parts of this 
country, and ere long we may hope to obtain the desired in¬ 
formation. We shall then be able to ascertain how far the 
theoretical value of cotton-cake, as deduced from analysis, 
corresponds with its practical effects on the system. 
This cake is obtained on submitting to strong pressure the 
oily seeds of the cotton plant (Gossypium barbadense ), which, 
as is well known, is cultivated extensively in the southern 
part of the United States, in India, China, the interior of 
Africa, and other warm climates. 
Cotton-seed yields a dark-brown coloured, semi-liquid, and 
agreeably smelling oil, which, in a purified state, is now used 
to some extent for the usual purposes for which other kinds 
of oil and fats are employed. The removal of the dark 
colour which the oil possesses in a raw state appears to be 
attended with considerable difficulties, which as yet have only 
been partially overcome. This, perhaps, will account for the 
fact that even now large quantities of cotton-seed are an¬ 
nually thrown aside as useless, or are used to some extent as a 
manure. However, the production of cotton-seed oil has 
been steadily increasing, and large importations into England 
of cake, chiefly from St. Louis and New Orleans, have been 
effected during the past season. It may be confidently ex¬ 
pected that the practical difficulties that stand in the way of 
the purification of the oil will soon be removed, and there 
can be but little doubt that then a constant and large 
