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Mr. Mcllvaine's book. Mushrooms should alwa)'s be prepared for 

 the table soon after collecting them. If, on the other hand, you 

 are collecting for study as well as for the table, more care must 

 be pursued in their gathering. With a stout knife or trowel lift 

 up the plants from tke soil entire, or cut them out of the log or 

 tree. Make on a slip of paper careful notes about the specimen as 

 soon as collected, for it is difficult for the most expert student to 

 distinguish species without such notes and when the plants have 

 dried up. These notes should distinctly state whether the toad- 

 stool grows on soil or on wood, and what kind; whether the top 

 of the cap is viscid, smooth, hairy, or water-soaked; whether the 

 gills are free from or attached to the stem; whether the stem is 

 fleshy and breaks easily or bends like rubber without breaking, or 

 if it breaks, snaps with a decided snap; what are the colors of cap, 

 gills and stem. It is especially necessary to make these notes in 

 the field, for within the few hours elapsing between time of col- 

 lecting and time of analyzing many of these valuable characters 

 will have disappeared, and even before the specimen is dry most 

 of them will have vanished. When these notes have been made, 

 wrap each plant carefully in oiled paper if it is sticky or slimy, or 

 in thin wrapping-paper if it is not, putting in the same paper the 

 notes you previously made. If any one not possessed of books or 

 other means of studying these plants, and yet desirous of learning 

 whether the plant is edible or not, (and let it here be kept in mind 

 that most of the toadstools are edible,) will exercise care in these 

 notes and in wrapping good thrifty plants carefully in the paper, 

 these specimens can if at all solid be sent some distance by mail 

 or express to any student of the group. If this is to be done, a 

 little moist but not wet moss should be packed about the plants 

 carefully and the whole sent in a cigar-box or in one of heavy 

 cardboard. This Station will be willing and pleased to make such 

 identifications for any who may wish to become acquainted with 

 some of the edible species of toadstools and who will make the 

 proper notes and exercise due care in packing and sending the 

 specimens. 



