DISEASES OF PLANTS. 141 



of edible fungi as an article of food. The yearly average of taxed 

 mushrooms in Rome during the ten years from 1837 to 1847 was 

 between 60,000 and 80,000 pounds weight. Dr. Badham, an 

 English writer, quoted by Balfour, was shocked to see numerous 

 edible fungi rotting uncared for at the time when famine prevailed. 

 He says, "to see pounds innumerable of extempore beefsteaks 

 growing on our oaks in the shape of Fistulina hepatica, Pufi' balls 

 which some have compared to sweetbread, Hydna as good as 

 oysters, Agaricus deliciosus, like tender lamb-kidneys ; the Agari- 

 cus ruber and virescens to cook in any way and good in all." 



You will call this rather extravagant language, but it was called 

 forth in a time of famine. It is the utterance of a botanist who 

 knew that whole tribes in Western Australia subsist for months 

 together upon esculent mushrooms. In China fungi are largely 

 used as articles of food, one which grows upon the decaying stem 

 of the castor oil plant being highly esteemed as a great delicacy 

 for soups and stews. You will however hardly be prepared to 

 believe that a family of plants which contains so many useful to 

 man, can comprise any of a totally different nature, but such is the 

 case. There are many fungi which are poisonous in the extreme. 

 There are many which are the inevitable accompaniment of certain 

 diseases both in animals and plants. 



Fungi are propagated by spores which correspond to seeds in 

 flowering plants. These seeds or spores are so minute that in 

 great quantities they resemble smoke. Spores of such minuteness 

 find their way everywhere, into old attics which are unused, into 

 mines far down in the earth. Near Di'esden there is a coal mine 

 which is lined with the dark-mine fungus. This fungus is luminous, 

 and it is described as giving to those places the air of an enchanted 

 castle, the roofs, walls and pillars being entirely covered with it, 

 the beautiful light almost dazzling the eye. 



Dr. Dancer of Manchester, England, found the air of the city 

 loaded with invisible spores of fungi. Thus it is seen that the 

 fungus spores can find their way into places far from their origin 

 and sealed from their approach. Some of these fungus spores 

 are the prolific cause of many plant-diseases, and for this reason 

 they have required this somewhat prolix Introduction. 



The parasitic fungi which concei'n the farmer most are those 

 infesting the cereal grains, and the potato. They have been 

 carefully studied by Henslow, Berkeley and German botanists, 

 and the facts which I present are from their writings. They are 



