200 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. r>oc. 



the housewife herself makes such mixture when she purchases either 

 of those materials; observe, however, that the vendor does not seem 

 particular to notify his customers of the admixture. 



As insta«ces of common adulteration by abstraction of valuable 

 substances, nmy be mentioned the skimming of milk before its sale; 

 for its detection the cliange in the proportions between the milk con- 

 stituents must be relied upon. The removal of much of the oil of 

 cloves from the white cloves and the subsequent sale of the spent 

 buds, is a matter of some frequency. The removal of an excessive de 

 gree, of the cocoa-butter from cocoa is to be regarded as belonging 

 to tills class of ofife«ices. On the other hand, no objecliou is urged 

 to the removal of some of the fixed oil of mustard since that is not the 

 valuable constituent of the condiment a«d the removal is believed to 

 increase the keeping quality of the ground mustard. 



At one time, spent tea, composed of the leaves that have been 

 steeped and thus exhausted of most of their soluble materials, was 

 observed upon our markets. The i)reseut conditions of the import 

 trade are believed to have put an end to the extensive practice of this 

 adulteration. 



The adulteration by imitation and misbranding is one of the most 

 prolific methods of raud. Cottonseed, harmless but very cheap, 

 parades as the finest imported olive oil; this is of comparatively in- 

 frequent occurrence to-day, however; white acid phosphate or a 

 mixture of gypsum and tartaric acid are sold as cream of tartar. 

 Fruit juices, so-called, are made from sugar, compound ethers, acid, 

 coal tar colors. Dr. Jeukios exhibited to me, some time ago, twenty- 

 five or thirty differently dyed stripes of wool, the variegated truth 

 of which were due to coal-tar dyes, but came severally from as many 

 glasses of soda water "with genuine fruit syrups." 



Fruit flavors are scarcely imitated by the artificial ethers or com- 

 pound ethers, made from acetic, butyric or valeric acid and either 

 ordinary alcohol or the fusel oil obtained as a by-product in the manu- 

 facture of cheap whiskey. 



Lemon extract instead of being composed of a solution of five 

 parts by volume of pure oil of lemon in ninety-five of strong alcohol 

 (oinety-two per cent.) is imitated by a solution of much less than 

 one per cent, of citral in twenty-five to forty per cent, alcohol, some- 

 times made more dense with sugar, and colored a beautiful yellow 

 with coal-tar colors, sometimes with the poisonous water-colors. 

 Citral forms, it is true, the most active flavoring material of oil of 

 lemon, which contains between six and seven per cent, of this alde- 

 hyde; but the latter material can be much more cheaply made from 

 East India oil of lemon grass, which contains upward of eighty per 

 cent. 



The most conspicuous members of this group are oleomargarine 



