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that many lovers of nature from outside sought permission to join in those 

 delightful rambles, and carried away the knowledge they gained, becoming in 

 their turn centres of information and instruction in their own neighbourhoods. 



Thus arose the practice amongst many of the Field Clubs of the country of 

 devoting their latest Field Meetings to collecting and studying these plants ; and 

 at the present time there are hundreds of diligent students hard at work from one 

 end of the country to another. 



Another outcome of this awakened interest is the publication of a work 

 which surpasses all others that have appeared in this, or any other, country, 

 containing drawings of nearly every British species, executed with excellent skiU, 

 and scientific accuracy — I mean Dr. Cooke's great work, " Illustrations of British 

 Fungi." But for the popularization of the subject such an enterprise would have 

 been a complete failure, and would have involved the rash projector in financial 

 loss. It is a work that no University, or public school, library can afford to be 

 without, and which no working mycologist can dispense with. I earnestly hope 

 the author may be rewarded by a large sale. 



Simultaneously with this awakened interest in the large fleshy fungi, there 

 has been a similar movement among professional botanists in regard to the great 

 groups of microscopic fungi ; the pathological effects of which are of such vast 

 importance in animal and vegetable life. In sanitation, in agriculture, and in 

 horticulture these minute organisms have asserted their claim to attention in a 

 manner that cannot be ignored ; they have touched the health and the pocket of 

 the community so severely bliat how to combat their ravages has become both a vital 

 and economic question of great importance. Although this subject is a digression 

 from the one before us, I cannot help reminding you of the labours and the 

 writing.i of such men as Mr. W. G. Smith, Mr. Charles B. Plowright, and Mr. 

 Marshall Ward, whose contributions to this branch of mycological literature stand 

 in the highest rank. To return to our subject : Can anything be done to clear the 

 way of obstacles that tend to retard the multitude from gaining a knowledge of 

 edible species, and thus open the door to a storehouse of wholesome food from 

 which they are at present debarred by ignorance? It must be confessed that no 

 royal rule has, up to now, been propounded, by which the poisonous can be dis- 

 tinguished from the edible. Charlatanism has stepped in and pronounced its 

 rules in all the confidence of ignorance. If a silver spoon turns black when 

 inserted in the stewing mass of fungi it has been said there is no danger, but this 

 rule has never been endorsed by any good authority. A few years ago a learned 

 judge laid down certain rules, the particulars of which I cannot remember, but I 

 know that bis utterances called forth very just and severe criticisms at the time 

 from those who had given most attention to the subject. Much risk to human 

 life is caused by such unwise general rules. The real facts of the case are well put 

 by the joint authors of " Fungi ; their Nature and Influences," which is worth 

 quoting in this connexion. "The inquiry is constantly being made," say the 

 authors of this work, " as to what plain rules can be given for distinguishing 

 poisonous from edible fungi, and we can answer only that there are none other 

 than those which apply to flowering plants. How can aconite, henbane, oenanthe, 



