_Barley sugar_ is sugar boiled in barley water, but now more frequently in common water, till it is brittle. It is then rolled on a stone anointed with oil of sweet almonds, and formed into twisted sticks. To give it a colour, a small quantity of saffron is sometimes mixed with it. When sugar was first introduced into this country, it was employed only as a medicine; but it has now become an essential article both of luxury and use. It is the basis of syrups; and is used in cooking, and in confections, preserves, sweetmeats, and liqueurs of every description. Sugar is also sometimes employed in medicine. The juice of the sugar-cane is so palatable, and at the same time so nutritive, that, during the sugar harvest, every creature which partakes freely of it, whether man or animal, appears to derive health and vigour from its use. The meagre and sickly negroes exhibit, at this season, a surprising alteration; they now become fat and healthy. The labouring horses, oxen, and mules, being allowed, almost without restraint, to eat of the refuse plants, and of the scummings from the boiling-house, improve now infinitely more than they do at any other season of the year. _Rum_ is a spirituous liquor distilled from molasses, scummings of the hot cane juice from the boiling house, or raw cane liquor from canes expressed for that purpose, lees (or, as it is called in Jamaica, _dunder_), and water. The dunder answers the purpose of yeast for the fermentation. Sugar-canes, as large and juicy as those of the West Indies, are cultivated in several parts of Spain, but particularly in the country betwixt Malaga and Gibraltar. They were originally introduced, by the Moors, several centuries ago; and the sugar made from them is of excellent quality. There are sugar mills, in more than twelve different places, on the coast of Grenada, all of which are fully employed: in one village there are four, which cost at least 5,000_l._ sterling each. 28. _OATS are the seeds or grain of an annual plant_ (Avena sativa, Fig. 14), _too well known, and too much cultivated throughout every part of Europe, to need any description._ _The country from which they were originally imported is not known._ The principal use of oats in this country is for the feeding of horses. In the northern parts of England, and in Scotland, they are applied also to the nutriment of man. When simply freed from their husks they are called _groats_ or _grits_; and, in this state, are much used in broths, and other kinds of nutriment for sick and infirm persons. More frequently, however, they are ground into _oatmeal_, which is made into cakes, biscuits, &c. The husks, infused in water, and allowed to remain till the water becomes somewhat acid, are boiled to a jelly called _sowins_. A grateful and nutritive kind of jelly, which has the name of _flummery_, is also made of oatmeal, boiled with water, and flavoured with a little orange-flower water, and sugar.