222 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The various priced mustards found upon the market of itself tells the tale of 

 sophistication. The fact is, that it is quite impossible to furuish powdered must- 

 ard in an acceptable form without slight admixture with some absorbent powder. 

 Mustard seed contains besides a fixed oil, much albuminoid matter, which have the 

 effect of spoiling the powdered article upon keeping for a short time, unless it be 

 dried by admixture with some inert and absorbent powder. Simple drying by heat 

 or exposure to air would not do, because that would cause the loss of the volatile 

 oil, upon which the mustard depends for its piquancy and flavor. Low grades are 

 produced by excessive admixture of absorbent powders, the piquancy being main- 

 tained by addition of red pepper, and the color by various coloring agents. The 

 absorbent powder used is generally fine and well dried corn flour, while the yellow 

 turmeric is used to keep up color. The corn flour is unobjectionable from a health 

 standpoint, and turmeric is of itself a condinment highly prized by some ; so these 

 sophistications can only be objected to upon the ground of deception. Our pepper is 

 made cheap bj^ admixture with ground cocao-nut shells, which furnish a powder in 

 appearance quite indistinguishable from ground pepper. Powdered almond shells 

 serve to adulterate powdered cinnamon, and ground roasted peas are used for ad- 

 mixture with ground allspice and cloves. 



Powdered spices of all kinds are exceedingly liable to deterioration. They all 

 depend for their peculiar properties upon volatile matters, which are easily lost, 

 upon the powder being kept for some time. I would advise housekeepers to supply 

 themselves Avith a small, easily cleaned hand-mill, and grind their own spices, 

 thus insuring freshness and freedom from adulteration. 



Our sugars are all pure. I mean by this that they are not adulterated, sophisti- 

 cated, these terms implying the addition of foreign matter in order to cheapen. 

 The lower grades contain much molasses, which is uncrystallized sugar, and glucose 

 in appreciable quantity, also coloring substances, together with dirt particlei?. 

 These articles all occur naturally in raw sugar, and according to grade only is 

 their removal claimed. Some time since, when grape sugar, dry and white, wa.s 

 first made cheaply, from starch and sulphuric acid, it was tried by sugar merchants 

 as an adulterant of cane sugars. It promised well, but trial found the impossibility 

 of so using it. One of its prominent characteristics is caking or lumping, and it 

 was fonnd that when mixed in any proportion with cane sugar, the whole mass 

 soon lost its pulverulent form, becoming one solid chunk of dough-like appear- 

 ance. This fact unfits it for sugar adulteration, and we need have no fear of it. 

 The experiment cost its projectors many thousand dollars, as they were compelled 

 to take up the mixture at great expense and supply in its place the true article. 



In days gone by the market afforded but two kinds of molasses — New Orleans 

 and sugar-house. New Orleans molasses was simply a dense solution of uncrystal- 

 lizable sugar, which was formed in large quantity, owing to the crude and imperfect 

 method of sugar making. This was separated by draining the portion that crys- 

 tallized, barreled and sold. Sugar-house molasses was of the same chemical nature, 

 but was minus the color, flavor and dirt. In the process of refining the raw brown 

 sugar, more of the uncrystallizable kind was formed, but this always after color, dirt 

 and flavor were removed, and it was this article which, being separated by drain- 

 ing from the white crystals, constituted sugar-house molasses. 



