8 EDIBLE MUSHROOMS 



bacillus, etc., which are daily bringing humanity with- 

 in their spell and revolutionizing the science of medi- 

 cine. But among all the various mycological publi- 

 cations we look in vain for the great desideratum of 

 the practical hand-book on the economic fungus — 

 the mushroom as food! The mycologist who has 

 been courageous enough to submit his chemical 

 analysis and his botanical knowledge of 



Need of fungi to the test of esculence in his own 

 a practical . ° . 



work bem^ IS a vara avis among them ; in- 

 deed, a well-known authority states tha:t 

 "one may number on the fingers of his two hands 

 the entire list of mycophagists in the United States." 

 The absence of such works upon the mushroom and 

 " toadstool," greatly desired for reference at an early 

 period of my career, and little better supplied to- 

 day, led to a resolve of which this volume is but an 

 imperfect fulfilment. 



The special character of my volume, then — the 

 collateral consideration of the fungus as food^will 

 be sufficient excuse for the omission of 

 Limitations of a merely technical discourse upon the 

 this volume structure, classification, and vegetation 

 of fungi as a class — a field so fully cov- 

 ered by other authors more competent to discuss 

 these lines of special science, and to a selection of 

 whose works the reader is referred in the list here- 

 with appended, to a number of which I am indebted 

 for occasional quotations. A general idea of the 

 methods of dissemination and habitats of fungi will 

 be found in the final chapter on " spore-prints," while 

 under the discussion of the "Amanita," Agaricus 



