dust, said to be the sweepings of the warehouses, can be imported for as many cents a pound as the prepared article can be sold for an ounce; so that there is great temptation to use these harmless but not tempting mixtures. Time and trouble are saved by the purchase of ready ground condiments, but the price paid is too great in proportion.

Of sixteen samples examined three were fairly good; nine were made up of pepper and mustard husks, flour, and Indian meal. Most of the adulterations can be detected by the microscope, after a careful study of the structure of the various seeds and husks; but experience has taught the writer that considerable practice is required to become expert at the detection of the kind of foreign matters used.

CAYENNE PEPPER AND PAPRIKA

Red or Cayenne pepper is made from the ground pods of various species of Capsicum, a plant of the Nightshade family. The cayenne of commerce is derived from tropical species, but the pods of the red peppers which are commonly cultivated for pickles, when ground, make a very good cayenne. The peculiar pungent taste is due to the presence of about 4 per cent of an acrid resin. The earlier English writers state that cayenne is more liable to adulteration than black pepper, and alarming stories are told of the presence of red lead, mercury, etc. But the results of examinations made in this country do not show any poisonous addition, and the addition of flour, etc, is rather less than in black pepper.

The Hungarian red pepper, or paprika, is a mild variety of Capsicum annuum which is coming into favor as being less biting.

Sawdust from red sandalwood and coal tar colorings are sometimes found in these peppers.

The following figures are taken from official reports from Massachusetts;

In 1901 of thirty-nine examined nine were adulterated with plaster, wheat, corn meal, coal tar dye, dirt, ginger, pepper shells, olive stones, sawdust.

In 1902 of sixty-six examined six were adulterated with plaster, wheat, corn meal, coal tar dye, dirt, ginger, pepper shells, olive stones, sawdust.

In 1903 of sixty-one examined one was adulterated with plaster, wheat, corn meal, coal tar dye, dirt, ginger, pepper shells, olive stones, sawdust.

In 1904 of seventeen examined six were adulterated with plaster, wheat, corn meal, coal tar dye, dirt, ginger, pepper shells, olive stones, sawdust.

Samples examined in Michigan show:

In 1901 of twenty-seven examined nineteen were adulterated as above.

In 1904 of 129 examined seventy-four were adulterated as above.

SPICES

Those spices, like nutmeg, cloves, stick cinnamon, mace, and allspice, which are bought by weight and in the form in which they are gathered are not exactly capable of adulteration. But there is a certain deception to be guarded against. An inferior or cheaper

quality of the same or of a similar kind of spice may be mixed with or substituted for better or more costly sorts without any corresponding diminution in price.

For instance, wild nutmegs are mixed with cultivated ones, bearing about the same relation to the best qualities that a cider apple does to a fine Baldwin. It is the same with mace and cloves, while cassia is so largely substituted for cinnamon that it is almost impossible to find stick cinnamon that is not mixed with cassia. To learn to know the genuine species with certainty is our only safeguard. Then if we choose to buy cassia we shall do it with our eyes open and without paying the price of the delicate and costly cinnamon.

NUTMEGS

There are three species of Myristica which furnish nutmegs. The best are the kernels of the Myristica fragrans, and are called queen nutmegs. The tree is a native of the East India islands, but is also cultivated in India and Central America. The best nutmegs are those from Penang, which are about an inch in length, shaped like a damson plum. The kernels are usually pickled in lime water, to ward off the attacks of insects to which they are particularly liable. The weight of good nutmegs should be, on an average, one hundred to the pound, or nearly seven to the ounce, grocers' weight. Very fine ones weigh eighty and one hundred to the pound, or five or six to the ounce. If pricked with a pin the oil exudes visibly, and the pin also penetrates readily. Wild nutmegs are small and pointed. They are inferior in the amount of oil and in the general fragrance.

MACE

Mace is the aril of the nutmeg, and its quality depends very greatly upon the kind of kernel on which it grows, the aril of the queen nutmeg being the best.

CINNAMON

The best cinnamon comes from Ceylon. It is the bark of a tree of the Laurel family, which gives us, even in this temperate climate, such plants as our sassafras and our spicebush. The trees are topped like osier willows, and the cinnamon used is the bark from the young shoots which form the bush at the top of the tree, and which are cut twice a year. A tract not much more than a quarter of a mile square forms the great cinnamon orchard of Ceylon. No other country produces so fine a quality, or so great a quantity, as the fertile and siliceous tracts of Ceylon and the neighboring islands.

The most noticeable character of true cinnamon is its

splintery, fibrous quality. It tears rather than breaks, and is in small, thin rolls. The taste is sweet and spicy, and it retains its flavor long in the mouth.

CASSIA

Cassia is used to mix with cinnamon, being cheap and abundant. It is coarser and in thicker rolls. It breaks readily but does not tear, and if chewed is granular and rather mucilaginous. It lacks the delicate, sweet taste and smell of cinnamon, having a peculiar woody, strong flavor of its own.

China or Canton cassia, the Cassia lignea of the

pharmacists, is the commonest and cheapest, costing about half as much as that of Batavia and one-fifth that of Saigon. It is the bark of a small evergreen found in Southeastern China.

The tree from which Saigon cassia, the most pungent and expensive of all the cassia or cinnamon barks, is taken grows in Cochin China. It is not unusual to find 4 or even 5 per cent of oil in good samples.

CLOVES

Cloves are the unexpanded flower buds of the Caryophyllus aromaticus, a tree of the Myrtle family, which is a native of the Moluccas, but which is cultivated in the East and West Indies, Guiana, Brazil, and the Philippines. Like all the spices under consideration, the active principle is due to one or more oils, which may be and are extracted and sold as oil of clove, oil of cassia, etc. Whole cloves containing 15 to 25 per cent of essential oil can hardly be said to be adulterated, although the stalks are sometimes in excess of the buds. Advantage is taken of the property of imbibing a large portion of moisture to increase the weight, and exhausted cloves are sold after distillation of the oil.

PIMENTO, OR ALLSPICE

Pimento is the berry of the Eugenia pimento, a tree of the Myrtle family, a native of the Caribbee Islands, and also cultivated in the East Indies. The berries have a fragrant odor, supposed to resemble a mixture of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmegs; hence the name of allspice.