126 Forestry Quarterly 



necessary to place it on pointed sticks, so that the cap stands 

 horizontal, a little higher than it stood, for wider dispersal. This 

 is best done in windstill weather, since otherwise an uneven seed- 

 ing would result. 



Another way is to collect the spores by cutting the fungus off 

 so that the cap will stand only slightly above the glass or paper 

 on which it is placed, leaving small space between the glass and 

 cap; then washing the spores together with plenty of water and 

 sowing them from a watering pot with fine rose. 



Intensive culture is indicated from a forester's point of view, 

 where raw humus is beginning to form. The crop must then be 

 started by inoculation in patches which are not yet humified, 

 when it will spread and presumably change the raw humus. 



The sowing should then be made with mycelium, which has been 

 grown in pure cultures ; the stumps in the woods of freshly felled 

 trees furnish a good substratum. The Mycological Institute of 

 the forest academy at Eberswalde is now prepared to furnish seed 

 material in plenty of several species, such as Psalliota campestris, 

 silvatica; Armillaria excoriata; Tricholoma graveolens, gambosus, 

 borealis; besides Agaricus campestris. Cultures of Boletus and 

 truffle have not yet succeeded. 



By analysis of various vegetables and lean beef in comparison 

 with Agaricus, it appears that the fungus contents may most 

 nearly approach the vegetables in nitrogen, especially in the fresh 

 state, on account of the water contents. In the dry substance 

 the three materials compare as follows in regard to nitrogen: 

 mushroom 7.59 per cent; vegetables 3.94 per cent; meat 13.98 per 

 cent. Yet, since in frying and cooking, mushrooms lose more 

 water than meat does, the composition of the two foods when 

 prepared comes closer, and the position as regards nutritive ele- 

 ments places the fungus in all directions halfway between the 

 two. Whatever of nitrogen compounds is soluble may be con- 

 sidered digestible. 



A thorough investigation into the composition of mushroom 

 extract compared with beef extract was made, when it appeared 

 that the dry substance of mushrooms contained three times as 

 much material extractible with water as the meat extract. 



The value of the mushroom as food (nutrition plus palatable- 

 ness) is to be measured by the extract materials. 



The author refers to the use of yeast extract as substitute for 

 meat extract, in commerce under the name of Sitogen and Ovos, 



