e Canary
Islands--being hardly distinguishable from a lemon except by its somewhat
less acid pulp and more pungent rind. Even a very careless observer can
hardly fail to be struck at this season by the heaps of those candied
rinds displayed in the grocers' windows; but the wildest imagination could
not guess at any thing so extravagant as the quantity of the fruit thus
used; and even when we learn that upward of 600 _tons of peel_ are
manufactured in the year, it is a hopeless task to attempt to separate
that prodigious bulk into its constituent parts. Six hundred tons of
candied peel! of a condiment employed chiefly if not wholly, in small
quantities in the composition of puddings and cakes. Six hundred
tons--12,000 hundredweights--1,344,000 pounds--21,504,000 ounces! But having
once got possession of the fact, see how suggestive it is. Let us lump the
puddings and cakes in one; let us call them all puddings--plum-puddings of
four pounds' weight. We find, on consulting the best authorities--for we
would not presume to dogmatize on such a subject--that the quantity of peel
used in the composition of such a work is two ounces; and thus we are led
to the conclusion that we Britishers devour in the course of a year
10,752,000 full-sized, respectable plum-puddings, irrespective of all such
articles as are not adorned and enriched with candied peel.

Citrons intended for peel are imported in brine, but oranges and lemons in
boxes. All are ripe in December, January, and February; but as it would be
inconvenient to preserve so vast a quantity at the same time, the juice is
squeezed out, and the collapsed fruit packed in pipes, with salt and
water, till wanted. When the time for preserving comes, it is taken from
the pipes, and boiled till soft enough to admit of the pulp being scooped
out; then the rind is laid in tubs or cisterns, and melted sugar poured
over it. Here it lies for three or four weeks; and then the sugar is
drained away, and the rind placed on trays in a room constructed for the
purpose. It now assumes the name of "dried peel," and is stored away in
the original orange and lemon boxes, till wanted for candying.

The other constituents of a plum-pudding add but little testimony on the
subject of number. We can not even guess the proportion of the 170,000
lbs. of nutmegs we receive from the Moluccas, and our own possessions in
the Malay Straits, which may be thus employed; nor how much cinnamon
Ceylon sends us fo