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, too, of a more concentrated nature. The practice of feeding animals destined for the shambles exclusively on roots containing 90 and even 95 per cent. of water, which once prevailed so generally in this country, is now limited to the farmsteads of a few old-fashioned feeders; and the necessity for the admixture of highly-nutritious aliment with the bulky substances which form the staple food of stock is almost universally recognised.