43 



as many people who have not made the study of it suppose. It is not easy in this 

 comparatively sparsely settled State for a sugar-maker to lay in a supply of sugar 

 other than maple, in quantities large enough to make extensive adulterations, with- 

 out making himself an object of suspicion. 



(2) Whatever adulteration has been or is done is not, as is supposed by the unini- 

 tiated, with low-grade cane sugar and glucose, but with refined or granulated 

 sugars. This, mixed witli dark and low-grade maple sugar, tends to lighten it in 

 color and texture, and correspondingly increases its market value. I am satisfied 

 that but an extremely small proportion of the sugar as it leaves the makers in this 

 State contains anything but pure maple. It is a well-known fact, however, that 

 great quantities of low-grade maple sugar, made from the last runs of sap, rank, 

 woody, dark, and commanding a price of not more than 5 cents in the market, is 

 bought up by manipulators in the large cities, worked over, purified, and adulter- 

 ated, and thrown on the market the following spring as " genuine maple sugar," 

 weeks before any maple sugar has been produced in the maple-sugar districts. 

 This is a fraud on the purchaser who thinks he is buying new maple sugar, although 

 the preparation he buys is infinitely more palatable and quite as good for the 

 stomach as the cheap maple which is the basis of the preparation. The cheap stuff 

 thus manipulated amounts to hundreds, possibly thousands, of tons each year. 



WEST VIRGINIA. 



From C. 0. Brown, secretary of State Board of Agriculture, Charleston, 

 W. Ya.: 



We think a national law governing food and drug adulteration would prove a 

 great blessing to our people. 



From Dr. J. W. McCoy, health officer, Wheeling, W. Va. : 



I have just learned that some farmers living close to this city have recently 

 brought an action against vendors of oleomargarin, who sold it contrary to law in 

 this State, the law requiring the product to be colored pink. 



From Hon. H. M. Turner, Shepherd stown, W. Va. : 



I think a national pure-food bill should be passed and all food adulterations in 

 this way lessened if not entirely broken up. 



From B. F. Irons, M. D., Pickaway, W. Va. : 



There is one matter that needs correction in our State, viz, whisky adulteration. 

 Our druggists as a rule keep a very inferior and, in my opinion, badly adulterated 

 whisky. I often get whisky for my patients that they can not use and have to 

 send to another State for it, and I would be glad to see a national law which would 

 compel the druggists to use or sell nothing but pure whisky. 



WISCONSIN. 



From Prof. Andrew S. Mitchell, analytical chemist, Milwaukee, Wis. : 



In 1890 I caught a milkman adding annotto to skimmed milk and got a confession. 



Last week I received a barley that I believe to have been bleached with SO 2 

 fumes. Four years ago, when cocoa leaves were very high in price, I purchased two 

 samples in different stores and neither contained one cocoa leaf. This leaf has two 

 faint false ribs parallel to mid rib, and is characteristic. 



I know of " coffee extract" containing no coffee and no chicory. I also have 

 some flour-paste coffee-beans that are very natural in appearance. In ten snmplesof 

 powdered opium assayed for morphine two fell far below 12 per cent and two others 

 scant 12. I have names of makers and details. Tinctures of expensive drugs when 



