K.— BOTANY 191 



the Field Mushroom (Psalliota campestris) , the Shiitake (Cortinelhis 

 Shiitake) and Volvaria volvacea, but it is of interest to note that here, 

 as in some other directions, the ant, regarded by some as man's most 

 serious competitor, has succeeded in cultivating many more fungi in its 

 fungus-gardens ; the termite, more an enemy of man's social progress 

 than his competitor, also is a fungus-cultivator. 



The common field mushroom is cultivated in Europe and America. 

 It has long been valued for its esculent properties. Horace referred to 

 it — ' pratensibus optima fungis Natura est aliis male creditur ' — which 

 Gerard translates as ' the medow mushrums are in kind the best, It is 

 ill trusting any of the rest.' 



When and where the cultivation of the mushroom began is unknown. 

 Tournefort in 1707 writes as if it was then grown commonly in France 

 and it is probable that the methods he described were of French origin. 

 It is not difficult to imagine how the frequency of mushrooms in horse- 

 tracks and other highly manured places led to a realisation of the requisite 

 conditions of growth, but it was fortunate that the mushroom was tried, 

 for no attempt since made to cultivate other species has met with 

 commercial success. Without entering into details it may be said that 

 the methods described by Tournefort are essentially the same as those 

 followed at the present time with the exception that spawn was not 

 planted in the beds as it was thought to occur spontaneously in horse- 

 dung in sufficient amount. Later the practice arose of inoculating the 

 beds with virgin spawn which, in this country, was usually contained 

 in mushroom ' bricks,' masses of dried horse- dung permeated with fungus 

 mycelium. The virgin spawn was obtained from highly manured places, 

 mill-tracks, stables, under haystacks, or even from trenches specially 

 prepared with layers of horse-droppings. Spawn-gatherers were highly 

 skilled and able to distinguish mushroom-spawn by its smell and appear- 

 ance from that of the numerous coprophilous fungi with which it is 

 associated in natural conditions. Since the War, however, the spawn- 

 gatherer of the old type seems to have disappeared almost as completely 

 as the professional truffle-hunter. The chief reason for this is that 

 spawn is now produced commercially by scientific methods. 



So soon as it was understood that fungi were reproduced by spores 

 attempts were made to obtain spawn from them. Though these efforts 

 may be said to have begun with Micheli's experiments on various fungi 

 in 1729, it was not until 1894 that J. Constantin and L. Matruchot 

 succeeded. They patented their method and the process was carried 

 out for some time at the Institut Pasteur where there was a ' Service des 

 blancs de Champignons ' under the direction of M. Tellier. Meanwhile 

 interest was aroused in America, which was importing about 3,000,000 

 pounds of canned mushrooms annually, and growers, moreover, had to de- 

 pend upon foreign spawn. The United States Department of Agriculture 

 began experiments. M. C. Ferguson carried out research work on spore- 

 germination but had little or no success except when a small piece of 

 mycelium was present. B. M. Duggar, who had been in Europe studying 

 methods of cultivation, described in 1905 how spawn can be obtained 

 satisfactorily by making cultures from the flesh of the stipe, an application 



