110 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895. 



should not find still other species at least equally suited to horticulture, 

 no one knows ; it may almost be said, no one has tried to find out. 

 The old kind is grown in almost the same manner as by past genera- 

 tions. It is far from my purpose, as it is from my ability, to treat at 

 length on mushroom culture. But a few facts may interest you. The 

 essentials are : — equable warmth, moist air, soil heavily charged with 

 nitrogenous matter, i. e., manure; and finally the mushroom plant. 

 Experience has taught how to secure the first of tliese essentials, and 

 that they are found at least expense in caves and cellars, or other dark, 

 close places ; and luckil}' experience has also pointed the way to obtain 

 and preserve the stock, for there is a curious and unexpected difficulty 

 to be overcome. The seed of every fungus is the spore ; but while 

 spores are easy to obtain in their season, no one has yet shown how 

 to grow a mushroom from a spore ; I mean a mushroom really (jood 

 for food. The Armillaria mellea, which can be eaten, but hardly with 

 joy, has been produced by sowing the spores on the juice of plums, 

 and has been cultivated to full development. 



But not so with the market mushroom. Plant these spores as you 

 will, nothing results. Someone, generations ago, found that the white 

 roots, the mycelium of this Agaricus, can be transplanted, and by 

 drying can be safely kept for months ready to grow and produce a 

 crop when heat, moisture and food are supplied ; and all cultivated 

 mushrooms grow from spawn, which is the dried mycelium, raised and 

 prepared by specialists who have their trade secrets. 



It is believed by some that the spores of these mushrooms gain the 

 power of growth and development in passing through the alimentary 

 canal of an herbivorous animal. Horses, cattle, and sheep ai'e very 

 fond of these fungi ; and old pastures are the best hunting-grounds 

 for many of the best sorts. 



I shall not take time to speak of the destruction of growing plants 

 and fruit by the microscopic fungi ; that topic has already been 

 elaborately discussed before you. But let me, in passing, call your 

 attention to the undoubted fact that if certain minute fungi are woful 

 pests to the market gardener and the florist, yet others are also 

 the direct cause of far out-weighing benefits, in bringing into a 

 useful and manageable state all dead vegetable matter. The 

 manure heap is simply a laboratory in which fungi reduce hard woody 

 tissues to a soft, friable, soluble state, which can serve as food for 

 growing crops. 



I wish to call your attention to some features of the life of one of 

 our very common mushrooms ; Armillaria mellea, in the older books 



