202 COMPOSITION AND NUTRITIVE VALUE OF COTTON-CAKE. 
supply of cotton-cake will be furnished to the English feeder 
of stock. 
The first cargoes of cotton-cake were imported into Eng¬ 
land some years ago, but the trials of it were not very suc¬ 
cessful. This need not surprise, for the introduction of every 
new article into the market is beset with difficulties. Per¬ 
haps the partial failures that attended the use of the early 
shipments of cotton-cake arose from the crude methods of 
preparing it, and the inferior, half-spoiled state in which it was 
given to animals. Probably also the first cargoes that were 
brought to England found no immediate purchasers; the cake 
had therefore to be warehoused for a considerable length of 
time, during which it got mouldy by damp air, sour, and un¬ 
palatable, before it found its way into the feeding stall. Even 
now some cotton-cake is so mouldy and sour that it is hardly 
fit to be given to animals. But there is another reason for 
the unfavorable opinion entertained by those who tried the 
practical feeding value of this cake when first imported into 
England. The albuminous soft kernel of cotton-seed is en- 
cased in a hard, dark-coloured shell, composed chiefly of 
woody fibre, and as the hard shell constitutes a large propor¬ 
tion of the whole seed, and woody fibre possesses little or no 
feeding value, all the cake that reached this country some 
years ago being made of the whole seed, was of inferior 
quality, in comparison with linseed or even rape-cake. 
I remember having analysed a sample of cotton-cake of 
this description four years ago. It contained only 5^ per 
cent, of oil and more than 30 per cent, of woody fibre. 
Such inferior cake is still prepared in the United States as 
well as in England. The cake, however, made in this country 
from the whole cotton seed is, I find, superior to the similarly 
prepared cake of foreign make. 
For the last year or two a very much better article has 
been sent over from the southern parts of the United States. 
It is prepared from the shelled or decorticated seed, and is 
sold at present as decorticated cotton-cake at 11. to 8/. per 
ton, or at about \l. to 30 s. more than the ordinary cake made 
of the whole seed. It occurs in commerce in two forms, 
namely, as thin and as thick cake. The latter, on account 
of the inconvenience which it presents to the consumer (as 
it is not readily crushed by ordinary oil-cake crushers), is 
reduced to a coarse powder by an American firm, who are 
large importers of both thin and thick decorticated cake. 
The coarse powder is sent to England in original bags, 
which are marked “ Patent Kiln-dried Oil-meal,” and also 
bear the name and address of the exporter. 
