CHAPTER VI 



Nutrition 



General experiments have long ago 

 shown that mushrooms grow best in fer- 

 mented stable manure. This fact does not 

 make the matter of mushroom nutrition 

 either a simple one or an unimportant one. 

 Indeed it makes the fundamental facts con- 

 nected with nutrition more difficult to as- 

 certain, for stable manure is complex and 

 variable. Why is fermentation necessary? 

 What are the effects of fermentation? 

 What are the real nutrients in manure from 

 the standpoint of the mushroom? The 

 finer mycological methods of work offer us 

 a means of answering some of these ques- 

 tions. 



Fermentation a biological requirement. 

 In the first place it may be definitely stated 



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