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supplies of food to cease — the suffering people are able to take every possible 

 advantage of the natural products of the country. Such information must also 

 prove most useful in the many cases of individual poverty and distress which 

 present themselves in every-day life, apart from such great calamities. 



The chief object of these papers on Edible Funguses has been to show that 

 the large amount of food as palatable as it is wholesome and nourishing, which they 

 would provide, is annually wasted. In the thinly populated agricultural districts 

 of Herefordshire, where wages are low and families often large, this food may be 

 had for the trouble of gathering it, throughout the summer months. The Rev. 

 M. J. Berkeley tells us of a schoolmaster in Northamptonshire, who, when he 

 could not afford to buy food for his children, kept them for several months on 

 mushrooms. "Why should not the agricultural labourers in Herefordshire doThe 

 same? It is seldom they get any other meat than bacon, but if when they fry 

 this, they could add slices of any of the Funguses we have described, how much 

 more rich and savoury the dish would be, and how much farther it would go in 

 feeding the family. Why should they not ? Simply because they want the in- 

 formation which would enable them to distinguish these Funguses. They know 

 the common mushroom and fully appreciate it, and yet with even less difficulty 

 they might be taught to know the others, for the majority of them are really 

 more distinct in character. There is no doubt a very deep prejudice against 

 them, and a generally prevailing opinion that all but the common mushroom 

 are poisonous. This is not the case. Some are poisonous certainly, but they, 

 too, can be as readily known as the poisonous plants of the ordinary kind. The 

 poor on the Continent, and indeed all classes of society there, know the good ones 

 enough, and eat them largely for many months in the year. They are called 

 there "the manna of the poor." 



The influence of example is great, and when the better classes who are 

 lovers of the Common Mushroom have learnt to know that before this Fungus 

 comes in, or after its season is over, there are many others all wholesome and 

 more or less excellent in flavour to supply its place, the poor, too, will learn to 

 know, and value them. 



In the end of April, or the beginiiing of May, the Fungus season begins 

 with the appearance of the true St. George's Mushroom, A'jaricus gamhosus 

 growing in fairy rings. These are quickly followed by the little fairy ring cham- 

 pignon, Marismus oreades, scattered specimens of the Horse Mushroom, Agaricus 

 arvemis, clusters of the maned Agaric, Coprinus comatus, which in warm sunny 

 seasons may be gathered all through the months of May, June, and July, and in 

 the last month Boletus edulis will have put in its appearance. Then comes the 

 great season of the common mushroom, Agaricus campestris, which may be 

 allowed to reign supreme through July and August. From this time through 

 September and October the great crop of Funguses will appear. Besides those 

 already named there will abound the fine-flavoured Parasol Agaric, Agaricus 



