PREFACE 



A SCORE of years ago (1880-1885) I was living in the mountains of 

 West Virginia. While riding on horseback through the dense forests of 

 that great unfenced state, I saw on every side luxuriant growths of fungi, 

 so inviting in color, cleanliness and flesh that it occurred to me they 

 ought to be eaten. I remembered having read a short time before this 

 inspiration seized me a very interesting article in the Popular Science 

 Monthly for May, 1877, written by Mr. Julius A. Palmer, Jr., entitled 

 "Toadstool Eating." Hunting it up I studied it carefully, and soon 

 found myself interested in a delightful study which was not without im- 

 mediate reward. Up to this time I had been living, literally, on the 

 fat of the land bacon; but my studies enabled me to supplement this, 

 the staple dish of the state, with a vegetable luxury that centuries ago 

 graced the dinners of the Caesars. So absorbing did the study become 

 from gastronomic, culinary and scientific points of view, that I have con- 

 tinued it ever since, with thorough intellectual enjoyment and much 

 gratification of appetite as my reward. I hope to interest students in 

 the study as I am myself interested. 



For twenty years my little friends the toadstools have been my 

 constant companions. They have interested me, delighted me, fed me, 

 and I have found much pleasure in making the public acquainted with 

 their habits, structure, lusciousness and food value. 



My researches have been confined to the species large enough to ap- 

 pease the appetite of a hungry naturalist if found in reasonable quantity ; 

 and my work has been devoted to segregating the edible and innocuous 

 from the tough, undesirable and poisonous kinds. To accomplish this, 

 because of the persistent inaccuracy of the books upon the subject, it 

 was necessary to personally test the edible qualities of hundreds of 

 species about which mycologists have either written nothing or have 

 followed one another in giving erroneous information. While often 

 wishing I had not undertaken the work because of the unpleasant results 



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