OIL-CAKE, the cake which remains in the press when seeds are crushed to express the oil which they contain. Oil-cake still retains a portion of the oil of the seed, along with almost all its other constituents, and is valuable either for feeding cattle or for manure. Li asee,d-cake is so much more largely used in Britain than any other kind that the name oil-cake is in general exclusively appropriated to it, the other kinds being known as rape-cake. poppy-c,ake, hemp-cake, colza-cake, etc., according to the plant from the seed of which they arc produced. The use of oil-cake for feeding cattle has very much increased of late years, and it is an article of commercial importance. Large quantities are imported into Britain from different parts of the continent of Europe, and from North America. But English linseed-cake—cake made at oil-mills in England, mostly from imported seed—is preferred to any other, because heat not being so freely applied during the expression of the oil, more oil is left in the cake, and also because foreign cake often suffers from dampness both before and during the sea passage. Besides the oil which remains in it, linseed-cake contains from 24 to 33 percent of nitrog enous substances or protein compounds, which make it very valuable both for feeding cattle and for manure. The value of linseed-cake for feeding is greater than that of any
kind of grain or is, next to linseed-cake, the kind of oil-cake best known in Britain. It is much cheaper than linseed-cake, but is not relished by cattle, having a hot taste. and a tendency to become rancid. Sheep, however, eat it readily, and it is often employed for fattening them. It is often also ground to a coarse powder (rstpe-du-sf), and used as a manure, Its fertilizing power is great, and it is used by the Flemish farmers as guano now is by those of Britain.--Clotton seed-cake is much used as a manure in some parts of North is used in the south of India, both for feeding cattle and for manure.—Other kinds of cake are noticed, if sufficiently important, under the plants from which they are derived. Their properties are generally similar to those of the pungency of muslard-eake, renders them unsuitable lot feeding cattle, See On.s.