MUSHROOMS, EDIBLE AND OTHERWISE 



Some of my teachers have during the past year made quite a study of this in- 

 teresting subject, and I have found that their pupils kept them busy in identify- 

 ing their finds. Their lists of genera and species, as exhibited on the blackboards 

 at the close of the season were quite long. I found from my Bohemian boys 

 and girls that their teachers in their native country had opened for them the door 

 to this very useful knowledge. Observation has proven to me conclusively that 

 there is a large and increasing interest in this subject throughout the greater 

 part of Ohio. 



Every professional man needs a hobby which he may mount in his hours 

 of relaxation, and I am quite sure there is no field that offers better inducement 

 for a canter than the subject of botany, and especially this particular department 

 of botanical work. 



I have a friend, a professional man who has an eye and a heart for all the 

 beauties of nature. After hours of confinement in his office at close and critical 

 work he is always anxious for a ramble over the hillsides and through the woods, 

 and when we find anything new he seems to enjoy it beyond measure. 



Many ministers of the gospel have become famous in the mycological world. 

 The names of Rev. Lewis Schweiwitz, of Bethlehem, Pa. ; Rev. M. J. Berkeley 

 and Rev. John Stevenson, of England, will live as long as botany is known to 

 mankind. Their influence for good and helpfulness to their fellowmen will be 

 everlasting. 



With such an inspiration, how quickly one is lost to all business cares, and 

 how free and life-giving are the fields, the meadows and the woods, so that one 

 must exclaim with Prof. Henry Willey in his "Introduction to the Study of the 

 Lichen" : 



" If I could put my woods in song, 



And tell what's there enjoyed, 

 Air men would to my garden throng, 



And leave the cities void. 



In my lot no tulips blow ; 



Snow-loving pines and oaks instead ; 

 And rank the savage maples grow, 



From Spring's first flush to Autumn red ; 

 My garden is a forest ledge, 



Which older forests bound." 



