39 



colors and prevent decay. Professor G. F. Atkinson of Cornell 







University uses for this purpose a large oven made of tin perfor- 

 ated here and there with holes, and containing many metal frames 

 also perforated, so as to allow free circulation of air while the 

 plants are drying. This tin oven is raised upon legs, so as to al- 

 low a gas jet to be placed under the bottom of the oven and thus 

 furnish a regular heat. By the proper regulation of this heat, by 

 the perforations in the compartment-frames, and by care in occa- 

 sionally turning the specimens, they can be dried out perfectly in 

 the course of a few hours or a few days, depending upon the size 

 and water content of the different species. Where these very per- 

 fect adjuncts cannot be had, the plants will dry quite well in 

 direct, strong sunlight, or by placing them on metal frames built 

 up around the stove-pipe at home. The heat in either case must 

 be strong enough to kill the larvae rapidly as well as preserve the 

 colors, or the specimens will be but poor at best. 



Composition of Mushrooms. 



There seems to be so much difference of opinion in regard to 

 the value of mushrooms as foods, that a little time will be spent 

 in quoting from those who have made studies upon these plants 

 from the chemical side, as well as to mention the symptoms of and 

 antidotes to mushroom poisoning given by chemists and phy- 

 sicians. 



It seems from recent chemical analyses that too much credit has 



been given mushrooms as food plants. We can find in otherwise 

 reliable scientific works the most extravagant statements about 

 the nitrogen contents of these fungi, some giving it as high as 50 

 or 60 per cent of dry weight, and likening them to "beefsteak," 

 "oysters," and other foods high in proteids. Perhaps the most 



PLATE 6. The Gray-gilled Hypholoma, Hypholoma capnoides. 

 Slightly reduced. A very fine mushroom, good raw or cooked, but 

 closely resembling and growing with the Bitter Fasicled Hypholoma, 

 Hypholoma fascicularis. 



