EDIBLE FUNGI: A WASTED FOOD PRODUCT. 



— BY — 



LUCIEN M. UNDERWOOD. 



Among the neglected products of America suitable for 

 food, none are so little understood as the mushrooms. The 

 same is more or less true among all Anglo-Saxon peoples., 

 yet the English are more accustomed to their use than either 

 the Americans or the inhabitants of the colonies. Strikingly 

 in contrast with this is the condition that prevails in conti- 

 nental Europe where various species of fungi form a very 

 general article of diet and are prized alike by the nobleman 

 in his palace and the peasant in his hut. Many species are 

 dried during the growing season and saved for winter use 

 when a fresh supply cannot be obtained, and in this form 

 large quantities are imported to this country and used as 

 food by emigrants from various European countries. In 

 some countries. Trance especially, they are extensively 

 canned and in this form are exported to America where they 

 are used at the larger hotels and restaurants, and frequently 

 in private families, though the price of the imported mate- 

 rial is usually so high that their use under these conditions 

 cannot become very general. In this connection it should 

 be noted, that, while immense quantities of finer mushrooms 

 annually go to waste in this country than those imported in 

 cans from France, the native forms are rarely collected and 

 sold for food except in the immediate vicinity of the larger 

 cities. We pay from thirty-five to fifty cents for a small can of 

 inferior French mushrooms,and allow bushels of the same spe- 

 cies in much finer quality to rot in our fields and forests. 

 A few years since I was obliged to wait for a train at a rail- 

 road crossing in Indiana. It was soon after the early fall 

 rains and in a field adjoining the crossing I could easily 

 have picked two or three bushels of Agaricus campesiris while 

 waiting for my train. When I reached Chicago on the train 

 I found an inferior quality of the same species selling for 

 fifty cents a pound in the open market. 



