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persons are appointed, whose duty it is to inspect the mushrooms 

 collected and brought into market, to see that no poisonous kinds 

 are introduced by mistake, and to give general information con- 

 cerning the kinds, both poisonous and edible. In this way doz- 

 ens of not only harmless but nutritious kinds are exposed for sale, 

 the people generally become acquainted with them, fine foods or 

 at least agreeable condiments are added to the common bills of 

 fare at small prices, while many poor persons partly or wholly 

 support themselves in gathering them for market. So highly are 

 various species of mushrooms appreciated by the Japanese and 

 Chinese of the Pacific coast, and so little are our native kinds un- 

 derstood, that tons upon tons are brought into San Francisco an- 

 nually in a fresh or in a dry state for consumption by these people 

 alone. Specimens of the celebrated Japanese varieties, the Shii- 

 take, a species of Lepiota, and the Matsudake were recently sent 

 to our institution by a Japanese gentleman, arriving here in a 

 nearly fresh condition, and we were assured by the donor that 

 they were a regular article of food upon his table. In nearly any 

 of the forests of the Northwest tons upon tons of valuable and nu- 

 tritious mushrooms go to waste annually, either totally unobserv- 

 ed or avoided with distrust by the observant under the impression 

 that they are ''toadstools" and consequently poisonous. Many 

 a prospector, surveyor or hunter in our vast and unpopulated dis- 

 tricts has gone hungry, nay, it may be, has died from hunger, 

 with food in great quantities and of varying degrees of nutritious- 

 ness and excellence going to waste about him! The too common 

 expression, that "toadstools are dangerous things, that people 

 don't know anything about them, and that the safest way is to 

 let them alone," is too foolish for utterance, and would not need 

 to be mentioned in this connection did not this opinion receive 

 the sanction of otherwise sensible and even educated persons. 

 With just as much reason can you say that beans cannot be told 

 from peas, cabbages from turnips. A child of ten years ot age, 

 with common powers of observation, to say nothing of adults, can 

 be told in a few hours how to distinguish at least a dozen species 



