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MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 4] 
are of various shapes, (see figure 3) all more or less irregular. If the 
head of a fungus be laid upon a sheet of paper, the gills downward, and left — 
over night, a perfect print will be found in the morning. It shows the great 
number of the spores, and the facility with which they are given off. The sub- 
ject of sexual reproduction in these plants is being carefully studied. Few 
results have yet been obtained. 
Of all the edible fungi, only two are cultivated: and one of these but very 
little. The mushroom is regularly grown for the market all over Europe. 
Truffles are cultivated with moderate success, and upon a small scale in 
England only. As an experiment, some fine mushrooms were grown in the 
following way: Spores were collected and sown upon a pane of glass 
covered with wet sand. When they began to grow they were transferred to 
adamp soil in a cellar. The bed was watered with a dilute solution of 
nitrate of potash, and in a week the plants grew to afine size. Large quan- 
tities of them are grown in caves near Paris. In one there are twenty-one 
miles of beds, sending 3,000 lbs. to market daily. The temperature is so 
equal in these caves that the plants grow the year round. It is very easy 
to cultivate mushrooms, even to an inexperienced person. During the sum- \ 
mer let some fine horse manure be collected and mixed with one-third the 
quantity of sandy soil. Keep it in a place where it will be much trodden if 
possible. It will heat a little, but the more it is trodden the less it will heat. 
If it gets above blood heat it must be worked over. The heap must be 
kept dry, in a shed or hole, andin a short time it will be full of the spawn or 
mycelium. Begin the bed in the cellar or root house by a foundation of 
strawy manure; then put on the contents of the heap, and over that four 
inches of rich mold. The whole should be trodden down | oe with the 
feet, and carefully watered. Smooth it all down with the back of a spade. 
In a few days the plants will appear. Others besides mushrooms will some- 
times come up, and must be removed. As fast as the mature plants are re-, 
moved, others will appear, and the bed will keep up the crop for several 
mouths. It must be kept moist. To all who have eaten these delicious 
plants, the labor implied in the above description will appear trifling. It 
will not always succeed. Sometimes the plants will be small and flabby, or 
covered with warts and mouldy spots. Other fungi are at work upon them, 
and the whole must be smoothed down for a new trial. 
Some of the fungi are very brilliantly colored. From white through all 
the tints of brown and yellow, purple and red to the deepest black; these are 
the predominant colors. But there are also occasional blues and greens. The 
larger number of the colored fungi belong to one genus (Pezizu.) Nearly all 
have the peculiar odor of a damp, close cellar; an odor of mouldiness and 
decay. Some are very fetid, especially when decaying. Most of the fleshy 
fungi have a peculiar nitrous odor when decaying. It is like a faint sniff of 
old nitric acid. As before mentioned, many of the poisonous fungi turn 
blue when bruised or cut. One of the edible species (Lactarious deliciosus) 
changes whenever broken to a dark green. It seems to be filled with an 
orange-colored fluid which is turned green by the air. 
The most striking phenomena connected with fungi, however, are those 
of luminosity. Every school-boy is familiar with the substance known as 
‘¢punk,” which is nothing but pieces of rotten wood which have been pen- 
etrated by the mycelium of certain fungi. The light is due to phosphores- 
cence, and in some varieties is very strong. It is produced by the rapid 
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