MUSIIJIOOMS AM) TllKlR USE. 



I. AM> IT. TX'I'UOnrCTIOX— GE.XEKAL iSTATKM KXTS. 



[Maiiv articles on mii.-li rooms have recently appeared in peri- 

 odicals in this country, from wliidi it is evident that there is a 

 desire on the part of many persons to obtain information con- 

 cerning them. It has, therefore, seemed good to me to tell what 

 little 1 know ahoiit the subject, even at the risk of taking up 

 what may appear to some a matter already well discussed. I am 

 the more strongly inclined to do this because of numerous pri- 

 vate appeals to me for information of this character, and because 

 no single periodical can ho}»e to reach all the people in this vast 

 country who desire information on such an interesting topic. 

 Be>:i<los, no single writer is likely to exhaust the subject, or to 

 tell all that should be known concerning it; what one may omit 

 another may express, and in this way general knowledge may 

 be increased. 



The times seem auspicious for such an undertaking, for with 

 much depression in financial and business circles, with lack of 

 employment and the reduction in wages now taking place, anv- 

 thing that promises to cheapen the cost of living or add to the 

 means of subsistence of the unemi)loyed or of those employed on 

 short time or at low wages, must possess a peculiar interest. 

 "Hard times" may now and then coiiij)cl us to look inio Nature's 

 bouTitifid storehouse for a sui)pl('nientary sui)j)ly of food. And 

 Mature, almost always lavish in her gifts, has indeed jn-ovided a 

 bountiful supply, which in this country has been greatly over- 

 looked and almost entirely neglected until very recent vears. 



^fushrooms have been, and still are, much more largely con- 

 sumed in Furope than in this country. In China also, where, 

 with her teeming jiopnlation, the cost of living seems to be re- 

 duced almost to its minininm, they are extensively used. China 

 itself does not supply its own denutnd for them, and thereforo 



