D OTHER ARTIFICIAL FOODS.

Oil-seeds, on being subjected to considerable pressure, part with
a large proportion of their oil, the remaining part of that fluid,
together with the various other ingredients of the seeds, constitute
the substances so well known to agriculturists under the name of
oil-cakes. These cakes contain a larger proportion of ready-formed
fatty matter than is found in any other feeding stuff, and an amount
of flesh-forming principles far greater than that yielded by corn,
or even by beans; the manure, too, which is produced by the cattle fed
upon some of them, is often good value for nearly half the sum expended
on the food.

The principal kinds of oil-cake employed for feeding purposes are the
following:--Linseed-cake, Rape-cake, and cotton-seed cake. Poppy cake is
not much in use. Their average composition, deduced from the results of
numerous analyses made by Voelcker, Anderson, and myself, are shown in
the following table:--

AVERAGE COMPOSITION OF OIL-CAKES.

---------------------------+---------+------+------------+-------
| Linseed | |Decorticated|
| Cake, | Rape | Cottonseed | Poppy
| English.| Cake.| Cake. | Cake.
+---------+------+------------+-------
Water | 12 | 11 | 9 | 12
Flesh-forming principles | 28 | 30 | 38 | 32
Oil | 10 | 11 | 13 | 6
Gum, mucilage, &c. | 34 | 30 | 23 | 30
Woody fibre | 10 | 10 | 9 | 9
Mineral matter (ash) | 6 | 8 | 8 | 1
+---------+------+------------+-------
| 100 | 100 | 100 | 100
---------------------------+---------+------+------------+-------

_Linseed Cake._--Within the last quarter of a century great attention
has been given to the feeding of stock, and the effects are observable
in the improved quality and greatly increased weight of the animals.
In the year 1839 the average weight of the horned beasts from Ireland
sold in the London market was only 650 lbs., whereas at the present
time their average weight is about 740 lbs. This remarkable advance
in the production of meat is in great part due to the cattle being more
liberally supplied with food, and that