822. _Sugar._--The lowest-priced and coarsest sugar is not the cheapest in the end, as it is heavy, dirty, and of a very inferior degree of sweetness; that which is most refined is the sweetest: the best has a bright and gravelly appearance. East India sugars appear finer in proportion to the price; but they do not contain so much sweetness as the other kinds. Loaf-sugars should be chosen as fine and as close in texture as possible, except they are for preserving, when the coarse, strong, open kind is preferable. 823. _Pepper._--The finest Cayenne pepper consists of powdered bird-pepper; but, as this is of a bad color, it is often adulterated to heighten the color. English chilies, dried and pounded, make good pepper. White pepper is inferior to black, although the former is sold at the highest price. White pepper is merely black pepper deprived of its outer coating, which has a stimulating property; so that white pepper is much weaker than black. 824. _Cinnamon_, when good, is rather thin and pliable, and about the substance of thick paper, of yellowish-brown color, sweetish taste, and pleasant odor: that which is hard, thick, and dark-colored, should be rejected. 825. _Articles in Season._--Some weak-minded persons affect to despise articles of food when they are plentiful and cheap, not knowing that such is the time when the articles are in the greatest perfection. Young and inexperienced housekeepers sometimes incur unnecessary expense by ordering articles of food when they are scarce, dear, and hardly come into season. This can only be prevented by attention to the seasons of different articles. 826. _Every Family to make their own Sweet Oil._--With a small hand-mill, every family might make their own sweet oil. This may easily be done, by grinding or beating the seeds of white poppies into a paste, then boil it in water, and skim off the oil as it rises; one bushel of seed weighs fifty pounds, and produces two gallons of oil. Of the sweet olive oil sold, one-half is oil of poppies. The poppies will grow in any garden; it is the large-head white poppy, sold by apothecaries. Large fields are sown with poppies in France and Flanders, for the purpose of expressing oil from their seed for food. When the seed is taken out, the poppy head when dried is boiled to an extract, which is sold at two shillings per ounce, and it is to be preferred to opium, which now sells very high. Large fortunes may be acquired by the cultivation of poppies. Women and children could attend to the cultivation of any quantity required for their own use, in making oil, and it would be found a profitable branch of industry, when engaged in on a large scale.