150 



OKI EuglauLl as ou the Coutiiieiit, auj the exiieiieuce of :ill those who have paid 

 n.ny attention to them — who have studied and eaten them — jiroves beyond doubt 

 that they retiiin their good qualities. The Parasol Agaric of Europe is equally 

 good here, and our Fairy-ring Chaniiiignon, with all its excellent qualities, is 

 theirs. "No country is perhaps richer in Esculent Funguses than our own," 

 says Dr. Badhani. "AVe have \ipwards of thirty species abounding in our woods. 

 No markets could be better supplied tlian the English, and yet England is the 

 only country in Europe wdiere this important and savoury food is, from ignorance 

 and prejudice, left to perish ungathered." 



Tlie "jNIanna" is plentiful, but our poor don't recognise it. 



Every kind of fungus, like every species of plant, has its own pccidiar 

 properties : one is wholesome, and another is poisonous, but the very great 

 majority of both plants and funguses are neither the one nor the other, they 

 have their uses in other ways, which it is not now necessary to point out. 

 Poisonous plants are much more numerous than poisonous funguses, and equally 

 virulent, but they are much better knoT^m, and therefore but few accidents 

 happen with them. It is true that we hear most years of a whole family or two 

 being poisoned from eating scraped Aconite root instead of Horse-radish ; but tliis 

 need not be. It is the result of pure carelessness. As well might the venomous 

 Fool's-parsley, which giows in every garden, be eaten for the true Parsley; or 

 those poisonous plants, the AVater Hemlock or the Water Dropwort, be gathered 

 and eaten for "Watercress. Knowledge and the habit of discrimination has 

 rendered such accidents happily very rare. So, too, some of the poisonous 

 Funguses are very common, and year by year we hear of families i>oisoned from 

 eating them, gathered hap-hazard as they must be, for ignorance with regard to 

 Funguses is almost universal. A very great prejudice has thus been created 

 against the whole tribe — the common mushi'oom excepted, — and this prejudice is 

 raised to the highest degree by the ever-present consciousness of the want of 

 information to distinguish between the good and the bad. 



The same knowledge with regard to Funguses as exists with regard to 

 plants, would render such accidents equally rare and without excuse. 

 Funguses do not change their characters. The edible kinds of fungus are 

 edible everywhere. WTien in a proper condition they " never become 

 poisonous, nor conversely the poisonous varieties fit to eat" (Badham). 

 The edible fung\is, nevertheless, may become unwholesome from age 

 decay, or decomposition, perhaps also from being gathered in some unhealthy 

 situation, but these are exceptions that can readily be guarded against. The 

 same kinds will of comse differ greatly in flavour, according to the locality 

 in wliich they may be gathered. It is the same with other kinds of food. Wild 

 animals, mountain mutton, country cliickens, as well as field muslu-ooms, are aU 

 preferable to those produced under more artificial means. This is simply a 

 matter of flavour, and not from any real change of property or quality. 

 Neither plant nor fungus changes its nature, each species has distinctive 



