60 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



them to us for ideatificatioa and study. We will try and classify 

 them and report back to you, and if edible will tell you how to cook 

 the mushroom sent. Should you chance to like it, and most persons 

 soon become mushroom eaters, as well as mushroom students, you 

 gain a new, wholesome, easily procured, delicious food for your 

 table. 



Right here, let me caution you. Do not try to eat any doubtful 

 specimen until you are positively sure that it is suitable to be eaten.. 

 While it is true that the dangerously poisonous species are few in 

 number yet they contain the most beautiful of all mushrooms, but 

 their poison is practically fatal in its effects, unless promptly 

 handled by some competent physician. To the poison contained in 

 some mushrooms, as yet no antidote is known. Let me add 

 further, that there is no single infallible, simple test known to the 

 mycologists. 



Send us, not one specimen of a kind, but half a dozen, the 

 youngest in the button stage, as well as others, including partially 

 decayed ones. Send us the whole plant including the root, if any. 

 Write us, telling us where you ficd it, whether on the ground or on 

 a tree or stump, whether on dry or wet land, in the woods or the 

 meadow. Give its color, as nearly as you can, when fresh; state 

 whether the cup was watery or dry to the touch. The more of these 

 items 5^ou can give us, the better we shall be able to classify your 

 specimen. We will not guarantee to name it, even with the best 

 description, as we ourselves are comparative beginners, and it is a 

 difficult study even at the best. 



You may ask "Are there many edible kinds?" To this I answer,, 

 yes. One of our members has sixty-four different kinds of mush- 

 rooms, found around St. Paul. Captain Mcllvaine, one of the 

 greatest living authorities on mushrooms, has eaten over four 

 hundred and fifty different kinds. At a mushroom supper recently 

 given by the society, we were served with mushrooms, prepared in 

 seven different ways. They can be baked, boiled, stewed, fried,, 

 broiled, scalloped and be used as a salad. 



If I have interested you in the subject, let me tell you how we 

 work. We meet one evening a week during the season, each member 

 bringing such specimens as he or she may have found during the 

 week. These are spread out on a table for exhibition and study. If 

 a specimen is known positively to any inember, it is named, and the 

 others attempt to fix the name in their memory or write it down in 

 their note books, so that they may recognize future specimens of 

 the same kind. If not known, some member of the committee on 

 classification takes up a specimen and, if possible, analyzes it at 

 once for the benefit of the rest. If not possible at that meeting, it is 

 taken home and analyzed before the next meeting, and a report is 

 made. 



It may be that while the mushroom may not be known at the time 

 as an individual, yet its family is known, and experience has shown 

 that the entire family is harmless; in such case, the specimens are 

 distributed among the members for a careful oulinary test and 

 report. Perhaps at the next meeting there follows an interchange 

 of the results obtained from cooking the specimens in different 



