The department recognizes three classes of inspectors, viz; Food Inspector; Drug Inspector; Food and Drug Inspector. The information to applicants regarding the scope of the examination is quite meagre, but includes: Practical questions, (competitors must obtain a rating of at least 70% or the remaining subjects will not be considered,) spelling, arithmetic, including fractions, percentage, interest, discount, analysis, and accounts. Penmanship, legibility, rapidity, neatness general appearance, and commercial geography.

Experience, which must show an experience in either drug or food examination or both, as the candidate may elect. The salary is $1000$1800. There is little likelihood of another civil service examination for nearly a year. Further information may be obtained by addressing Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.

To Color Globes.

Would like formula for base or coloring matter of different shades to apply on electric light globes. A DRUG CO. Bellingham, Wash.

Our advice would be to buy the globes already colored. We do not know of any process for coloring that would prove as satisfactory. The most common process is to apply collodion to the globes in which some aniline dye has been dissolved; an exchange gives the following:

Arom, sps, ammonia

Rose water

They are redeemed by the United States treasury. When a national bank begins business it must deposit United States bonds as a security for its notes. When it fails or goes out of business, these bonds are sold and the proceeds used to redeem the bank's notes as they come in. All notes which have been destroyed can, of course, never be presented for redemption. Whatever this amount is, would represent a clear gain to the government. This gain to the government has thus far amounted to over $3,000,000, equal to 2-5 of one per cent upon the entire amount of national bank notes put into circulation.

2. You can sell them without special license through dealers or agents, unless such agents or dealers "peddle" from place to place. Then most states require a "peddler's license." Ioformation on this point can be obtained by addressing the office of the Secretary of State in any particular state.

3. We think there is no law in any state relating to the use of the word "cure" in advertising matter. It's use, however, is inadvisable. The label on a preparation intended for interstate sale cannot be designated as a "cure." It can, however, be labeled a "relief."

4. If your article is to be sold in more than one state you must comply with the conditions of the U. S. Food and Drugs Act, information concerning which may be obtained by addressing the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.

Chemical Trees.

SILVER TREE.- Dissolve two ten-cent pieces in two fluidrachms of concentrated nitric acid: evaporate the solution almost to dryness to drive off excess of acid. Cool it and dissolve the resulting crystalline salts in sufficient distilled water to make a saturated solution. This solution is slighly blue, on account of the copper which is alloyed with coin silver. Place the solution in a glass vessel with a curved bottom. Add a drop of mercury the size of a large pea and set the mixture aside for twenty-four hours. or place it in the window. An arborescent growth of mercury and silver amalgam will be produced, which may be kept indefinitely.

LEAD TREE. Place in a tall jar or widemouthed bottle a solution made by dissolving four ounces of lead acetate in one quart of water. Place the vessel where it will not be subject to vibration and suspend in it a strip or cylinder of zinc; battery zinc answers the purpose very well. An abundant growth of crystalline spangles of metallic lead will collect on the zinc within forty-eight hours.

TIN TREE. Dilute commercial tin chloride solution with forty times its bulk of water and suspend a strip or pencil of zinc in it, as in the case of the lead tree. The growth will be very similar to that of the latter.-J. P. Stroup.

HOT soda still demands our attention, and before I go any further I want to say that it is just as essential to have your hot drinks hot at this season as it is to have the cold ones cold in summer. Don't stint on your gas, but keep the "pot boiling," for if there is anything that the public wants in the winter it is a hot drink that is hot. This is one of the secrets of hot soda success have it hot when it reaches the table or counter; you seldom have a customer who is in such a hurry that he finds fault if you do this, and if you do it is an easy matter to cool it. On the other hand, it is impossible to heat a drink without spoiling it, and at many foun tains it is impossible to do it all.

HOT COFFEE

The bringing of the lunch business to the soda fountain, or perhaps I had better say the turning of soda counters into lunch counters, has increased the demand for hot coffee. Where lunches are not served the hot chocolate takes the lead, but where lunches are served, the de mand for coffee often exceeds it. You will find that the demand for good hot coffee will begin earlier and continue later than the demand for hot chocolate. There are a great many people

who have what may be called the coffee habit who cannot eat unless they have one or two cups. Then there is a large class of people who may be said to "know coffee" and who can tell good coffee when they drink it. It pays to cater to this class of trade, and if you want it you must cater to it for they won't buy slops.

The thing most essential to success is good coffee. It is not necessary to mention any special brand or blend for in various sections of the country some brands seem to meet with public approval which are entirely unknown in other sections. Have good coffee, don't stop at a reasonable price; it is always the man who aims to have it all profit who has none. A good drink yielding a fair profit and large sales is much better than one which, while it may yield a large profit on one cup, can only create very small sales.

To have good coffee, it must be made fresh several times a day. The only practical way to serve coffee is to have an urn especially for it, or a modern compartment urn with a special coffee section. Make your coffee by the French drip method, which is the only practical one for fountain use. Place from six to ten ounces of the coffee in the bag for every gallon required. The quantity depends upon the desired strength and

also upon the quality of the raw coffee for more is required of some brands than of others. The water should be boiling hot when poured on the coffee so that the steam can penetrate to every portion of the coffee and thus obtain all the life that it contains.

Serve a small individual creamer of cream with each cup, for there is nothing that makes a cup of coffee taste as good as a little real cream. Whipped cream may be served, but is not as desirable with coffee, as the plain cream. Keep your coffee hot at all times, and then you are sure of giving satisfaction, that is if you don't make too much at a time. Don't get lazy and try to make enough to last all day, it is better to make a gallon or even half a gallon at a time than to prepare two gallons and have it spoil before it is served.

Of course you can prepare a cup of coffee from an extract or a syrup, diluted with hot water if you desire to, but you cannot build up a coffee business in that way. If you feel that you must use an extract make it fresh every morning.

HOT CHOCOLATE.

We must not pass the season without a word on the old, yet ever new subject of hot chocolate. There are more ways of serving a good hot chocolate than there are of serving good hot coffee, and while we might profitably go into all these methods if space permitted, we must content ourselves with saying a few words upon the more approved methods of hot chocolate making and serving. The day has long since passed when the successful man could serve hot chocolate made from the cocoa powder direct, while the customer waited. There was a time when many used this process and it may be that it is still done in some places with a fair show of success, but in the majority of locations something more up-to-date must be done to make things a great success.

In a New England city of twenty thousand population I know a progressive druggist who has six separate hot urns, one for water, milk, coffee, clam broth, beef broth and one for a special. We are up against the problem of giving the public something that will create a demand for itself. For the very large dispenser of

hot chocolate I would of course recommend a separate urn and the preparation of finished chocolate ready to serve, but as the majority of my readers are not large dispensers I recommend the following as even superior to a finished chocolate.

HOT MILK.

The secret of success in dispensing finished chocolate lies in the fact that it is prepared either of all, or nearly all milk. Finished chocolate has some disadvantages, the greatest of which is that it is impossible to keep the cocoa in suspension so that every drink will be evenly flavored. By my method this difficulty is entirely avoided. It consists in having a hot milk urn and adding the hot milk to a special hot chocolate syrup. There are several advantages in this method. First, it is nearly if not quite as rapid as the other. Second, it admits of catering to various tastes with reference to sweetness and strength. Third, at the close of the day there is no loss unless it is a little hot milk. One is often tempted to use a couple of gallons of finished chocolate left over from the day before even when its fitness may be questioned, when one would not be tempted to use a small quantity of old milk. Again, in the preparation of hot chocolate one generally makes a certain quantity each day, while milk can be added in any quantity required to finish the day's business. The man who is progressive and who would keep abreast of the times must use one of these two methods and for the majority I recommend the latter.

HOT CHOCOLATE SYRUP.

There are many good formulas for making hot chocolate syrups, but I want merely to give you at this time a good serviceable formula, one that will be available to the average dispenser. The first question is, of course, that of the selection of the material. There are many makes and qualities of cocoa, and you must use your own judgment in the matter of making a suitable selection. We will only say that if you desire to build up a large business you must use a good quality of cocoa, as the public soon gets tired of a cheap quality of cocoa, even if they do not know why.

Having selected the grade of cocoa, the next question is to cook it properly. Cocoa should be thoroughly cooked, and for this purpose I have found that a double boiler is best, as you are thereby saved the trouble of constant watching. Large users will also find either a steam jacket or a major's kettle very useful and even small dealers could use the latter.

For every eight ounces of cocoa use three and one-half pints of water and two and one-half pounds of sugar. Put the water into your waterbath kettle, add the cocoa, stir occasionally until the cocoa is thoroughly moistened, then cook for one hour. Add the sugar, stir until dissolved and let it cook for many minutes; when cold strain through a fine strainer or cheesecloth. If desired from one-half to one ounce of vanilla extract can be added for every eight ounces of cocoa used.

If you cook your cocoa in an open kettle it is not necessary to cook it so long, but it must be watched very carefully and stirred frequently to prevent burning. One thing you may be sure of is that there is not much danger of cooking your cocoa too much, for the trouble with most dispensers who use good cocoa and still have unsatisfactory results, is that the cocoa is not properly cooked.

If the syrup is too thick it may be thinned by the addition of a little water. The best time to do this is just after you have added the sugar and the syrup is still hot; it may be done after it has cooled, but does not mix as easily.

FINISHED CHOCOLATE.

If you desire to run finished chocolate all you have to do is to dissolve a quantity of the syrup (to suit taste) in hot milk, or a mixture of hot milk and hot water. We would not advise the use of more than hot water, and would be even better; it is, however, true that some think that all milk is too rich.

For the benefit of any who may desire to prepare a finished chocolate, and use in its preparation the sweet vanilla chocolate, we give the following: Grate from one to one and a half pounds of some good make of sweet vanilla chocolate in each gallon of milk used and dissolve in a water bath. Place the milk, (or if the batch is a large one, part of it) in a whipping

dish and slowly add the dissolved chocolate, whip it for a few minutes, then place in a porcelain-lined urn, add the balance of the hot milk and it is ready to serve. This must be stirred frequently to prevent the chocolate from settling. Serve with whipped cream.

HOT EGG DRINKS.

Hot egg drinks are coming more and more into favor and it may be well to mention the subject at this time. People used to think that if a raw egg were added to a hot drink that the albumen in it would coagulate and thus make an unpalatable drink, but this theory has been proven false. You need a spa shaker with a mixing tree in it to properly shake a hot egg drink as the egg must be thoroughly beaten.

HOT EGG PHOSPHATE.

Into a mixing glass draw an ounce of orange syrup made from the fresh fruit, add an egg and a few dashes of phosphate and shake thoroughly. Strain into a glass or mug that will hold ten ounces. The seven ounce mug usually used for hot drinks is too small to make a good hot egg drink in. Place a spoon in the glass, and slowly add the hot water, stirring constantly until the glass is full. This can be seasoned with a little nutmeg. Some like salt and pepper, but not many, though a little salt is harmless.