224 VARIETIES OF MUSHROOMS. 



The common mushrooms vary in size and appearance. Some have 

 measured 30 inches in circumference, and weighed over a pound. 

 They are chiefly used to give flavor to ragouts. The button, or fleshy 

 part, only is used, the stem, gill and skin being discarded. Being laid in 

 salt, a juice is obtained which is boiled with spices, and this forms the 

 catsup sauce. Mushrooms usually grow in rich old pastures, and are 

 gathered in Sept. They are sometimes found among potatoes, and in 

 places where they are little expected. It would not seem necessary 

 to sow their seed, as they appear to exist in most places, and to ger- 

 minate whenever circumstances are favorable, and oftentimes in large 

 quantities. But, for a regular supply, they are cultivated in gardens, 

 from the seed or spawn, though the wild ones are considered best. The 

 spawn is a white fibrous substance which exudes, in short threads, 

 from the plant. This is scattered on beds prepared with stable man- 

 ure, and cultivated with care. There are 10 or 12 species considered 

 esculent by botanists. 



The champignon, agaricus protensis, has a stem like the A. campes- 

 tris and A. auruntiacus, just described ; but it grows on moister soil, 

 and is therefore more suspicious. It resembles also the poisonous toad 

 stool (agaricus virosus) on the upper part. All the mushrooms so 

 nearly resemble each other that persons should be very cautious in 

 eating them. If the smell be nauseous, they should be rejected. 



A curious species (boletus) is eaten in Italy, which is raised from 

 stone ; one being a lime stone, found in chalk formations, and the 

 other a solid turf from volcanic mountains. These stones are put into 

 a cellar and constantly bathed with water in which the boletus has 

 been washed, when they produce the fungus, which is eaten. One 

 species is produced from bruised fragments of mushrooms ; another 

 from the husks of the bay-tree berries, another from the refuse of olive- 

 oil presses. In France, the boletus edulis is raised by keeping the 

 earth under oak trees moist with the water in which the plant has 

 been boiled. This is said to taste like the cocoa-nut. One of the 

 largest and most beautiful of the agaric tribe is used in the north of 

 Asia to promote intoxication, having the same effects as ardent spirits. 

 It is the favorite drug, moucho-more, used in Russia to intoxicate. 

 The fungi are gathered in hot weather, and dried for this purpose. 

 It is taken rolled up like a bolus and swallowed without chewing. 

 When eaten fresh in soups it is not so intoxicating. One or two small 

 fungi produce pleasant intoxication for a whole day ; and if water be 

 drunk after it, the narcotic effects are increased. The giddiness and 

 drunkenness are like those produced by spirits. At first the recipient 

 is cheerful and very active and talkative, and the effects are often lu- 

 dicrous; so that in jumping over a stone, the person leaps as if to go 

 over a fence. A talkative person withholds no secret, and others sing 

 continually. 



