SINA'PIS. Two species of this genus are used in this country to yield the mustard of commerce, S. a/ba and S. ?tiara, or white mustard and black mustard. Both are annuals, the latter extensively cultivated in Yorkshire and 1)urliarn. Of the former the seeds are large, smooth, not veined or reticulated, and when bruised and mixed with water, du not evolve a pungent odour. The integument or skin is also thin, and the quantity of fixed oil obtained from it is hem than from that of the black mustard. White mustard is of a light colour externally (but one variety in blackish), and when reduced to powder, is of a light yellow colour.
The seeds of Week mustard are about the sire of the head of a common pin. ovato-globose, of a reddish.brown, beautifully veined, internally yellow, oily, and yielding a sellowish-green powder. The chemical constitution of the two is essentially different, as it is only the black mustard which evolves, when bruised and mixed with water, the pungent principle which irritates the eyes, nostrils, and skin. The white mustard poesestses a non-volatile acrid principle, which is developed by the addition of water ; also a peculiar principle, caliph°. sinapisin. It is the young plants from this speck% which are eaten with cress as a salad.
The fixed oil is perfectly bland, like that of olive or rape, which last it greatly resembles. It exists to the extent of 20 per cent in white, and about. 23 per cent. in black mustard-seed. To obtain it the seeds are crushed in a mill or between rollera, and the skins should be subjected to pressure as well as the farina or flour. The cake may then be sifted sod reduced to a fine powder, as it retains all the pungent properties. In France the oil is generally left in the seeds, which renders them very difficult to powder, and makes it expensive. It is also leas potent than English mustard in equivalent quantity. The moire or cake is sometimes used as manuro, but this is a waste. It has been supposed to be anthelmintie as well as purgative, but its medicinal properties are insignificant.
Pure flour of mustard ought alone to be used for medical purposes, but it is seldom to be met with ; the mustard of the shops is a mixture of the flour of both black and whits mustard with wheat flour and capsicum.
Flour of mustard, mixed with water, forma the well-known condi ment so much used with all the more indigestible articles of food, the solution of which it seems to favour by rousing the powers of the stomach. A tea or table-spoonful of mustard in a tumbler of water forms a ready and useful emetic in many cases of poisoning, especially when narcotic poisons have been taken ; also in cholera. Added to loot baths, mustard has a revulsive action, which is often serviceable in the commencement of colds, and when gout has seized the stomach or brain; also when cutaneous diseases have suddenly receded. (Rune FACIENTS.) Sinapiams are generally directed to bo made with vinegar, but water of the temperature of about 100° Fahr. is preferable, and less expensive. French mustard for the table is often prepared with vinegar.
nigra differs from the white mustard in the flowers being much smaller, and in the seeds being black. The great purpose for which the black mustard is grown is for the seeds. "To raise the seed for flour of mustard and other officinal occasions, sow either in March or April in an open compartment, or large sowings in fields, where designed for public supply. Sow moderately thick, either in drills six or twelve inches asunder, or broad-cast, after the ground has been properly ploughed and harrowed, and rake or harrow in the seed. When the plants are two or three inches high, hoe or thin them moderately where too thick, and clear them from weeds. They will soon run up to stalks, and in July, August, or September return a crop of seed ripe for gathering ; being tied up in sheaves and left three or four days on the stubble." (Don's Miller.) Rain damages the crop very much. Black mustard exhausts the soil rapidly. When once grown it is difficult to extirpate on account of the great vitality of the seeds, which, if buried at almost any depth and for any length of time, will germinate when brought to the surface. In preparing the flour of mustard in this country, the black husk of the seed is separated by delicate sifting. This process, which is not gone through on the Continent, makes the British mustard so much lighter and more agreeable in colour.