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149 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE EDIBLE FUNGUSES 

 OF HEREFORDSHIRE. 



(By Dr. BULL.) 



"Nothing we see but means our good, 

 As OUT delight, or as our treasure : 

 The whole is either our cupboard of food 

 Or cabinet of pleasure." 



George nerbert. 



In those coimtries where Funguses are weU known anil properly appre- 

 ciated theyha'pe been termed "The Manna of the Poor." The growth, as it 

 were, of a single night, they are gathered, morning after morning, for the simple 

 trouble of collection, and form, with dry bread, the sole food of the inhabitants 

 for many weeks, or even months together. In their many kinds they make a 

 varied diet which is looked forward to with pleasure by the rich as weU as by 

 the poor over extensive tracts of Norway, Sweden, Russia, Austria, Hungary, 

 great part of Germany, the soiith of France, and Italy. Wherever much land 

 remains uncultivated, they are very abundant, and there the season of Funguses 

 with the poor is a season of plenty as well as of pleasure, and experience has 

 long since proved that it leaves those who thus live on them in the full enjoy- 

 ment of health and strength.* 



In another sense, too, Funguses, in these countries, are the "Manna of the 

 Poor." "What they do not themselves consume, they sell When fresh or dried, 

 or variously preserved in oU, or vinegar, or biine, they meet a ready sale, and 

 thus many, who have no other produce to bring into the market, obtain a 

 valuable source of income. + Their use on the continent is almost universal. 

 They flavour the dishes of every table, and to them is undoubtedly owing some 

 of the renown which justly belongs to foreign cookery. 



It is very remarkable, that an article of diet so commonly used throughout 

 Europe should be so much neglected in England, and it gives rise to the natural 

 question, "Is it to be found here with the same valuable properties, and in 

 sufficient abundance and variety to make it worthy of notice?" In every parti- 

 cular the answer to this question must be given affirmatively. The same valuable 

 Funguses, for the most part, grow with equal hi xuriance in the foggy land of 



* On seeing the peasants about Nuremburg eating raw mushrooms, Schwregrichen 

 resolved to try them, and he, too, for several weeks, restricted liimseU entkely to tliis 

 diet, " eating with them nothing but bread, and drinking notliing but water, when, instead 

 of finding his health impaired, he rather experienced an increase of strength." Dr. 

 Willdenow made the same experiment, and with precisely the same result. 



+ Dr. Badham computes that the value of the Funguses sold in the city of Rome in a 

 single year amounts to nearly £1000 ; and since the population of Rome is only 154,000, 

 whilst that of Naples is 360,000, and that of Venice 180,000. And he asks, " If this is 

 the value of Funguses sold in a single city, what must be the net receipts from the market 

 places of all the Italian States!" 



