VARIOUS FARM PRODUCTS 565 



Mustard seed has no odor whatever when collected, not even 

 when it is powdered in its dry state, but as soon as water is added 

 in grinding it, the powerful, penetrating mustard odor is developed. 

 The taste is sharp and pungent. 



White Mustard (Sinapis alba). Yellow mustard. White 

 mustard is a weed found in cultivated land along waysides and 

 fence rows, but is not so abundant nor so widely distributed as the 

 black mustard. The seeds are to be collected in the same manner 

 as those of black mustard. White mustard seed has no odor in its 

 entire state, and when water is added in grinding it the odor does 

 not become so pronounced as in the case of black mustard, neither 

 is the taste so pungent. In medicine mustard seeds are used prin- 

 cipally in the preparation of plasters and poultices. They are used 

 also in dyspepsia, and in large doses act as an emetic. The imports 

 into the United States of black and white mustard together during 

 the fiscal year ended June 30, 1903, amounted to 5,302,876 pounds. 

 The price ranges from 3 to 6 cents per pound for both the black 

 and white mustard seeds. (F. B. No. 188.) 



POISONOUS PLANTS OP THE UNITED STATES. 



Statistics in regard to poisonous plants are lacking on account of 

 a general ignorance of the subject, and it is therefore impossible to 

 form even an approximate estimate of the amount of damage done 

 by them. The various species of water hemlock (Cicuta) kill a 

 number of children each year. In the State of New Jersey two 

 quadruple cases of water-hemlock poisoning were reported during the 

 spring of 1896, which resulted fatally to two of the eight individuals 

 affected. The number of cattle killed by one species of Cicuta in 

 Oregon alone is estimated to be over 100 per annum. The damage 

 caused by the well-known loco weed in Colorado was so large that 

 the State paid out nearly $200,000 in bounties in an effort, unfor- 

 tunately ineffectual, to exterminate the pest. The distress caused 

 by poison ivy is being constantly experienced by thousands of in- 

 dividuals. 



Recent investigations have been made of cases of poisoning 

 which have been reported. By communicating with the physicians 

 who had charge of each case, accurate and full data were obtained 

 with regard to many plants. 



All poisonous plants are not equally injurious to all persons, nor 

 to all forms of life. The most familiar illustration of this fact is to 

 be found in the action of poison ivy. It has no apparent external 

 effect upon animals, and a few of them, such as the horse, mule, and 

 goat, eat its leaves with impunity. It acts upon the skins of a 

 majority of persons, but with varying intensity. Many people are 

 probably wholly immune, but some lose their restraint power in mid- 

 dle life; others have been known to attain immunity from it to a 

 very considerable degree. There is a similar variability in the effects 

 of poisonous plants taken internally. The qualifications involved in, 

 the definition of a poisonous plant are numerous, and can not well 

 be introduced into this work. It may suffice here to say that death 

 in some cases is attributable not to any poison which the plant con- 



