INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES. 133 



affected by it are both unwholesome and indigestible, 

 and I can readily believe that in aggravated cases they 

 are poisonous. It is caused by other fungi which infest 

 the gills and frills of the mushrooms, and render them a 

 hard, Hocky mass ; sometimes 

 the affected mushrooms preserve 

 their white skin, color, and nor- 

 mal form, at other times the cap 

 becomes more or less distorted. 

 The illustration, Fig. 26, is 

 from life, and a good average 

 Fig. 26. A FLOCK-DISEASED of a flock-infested mushroom. 

 MusHBooM. In gathering mushrooms the 



growers should insist that every flock-infested mush- 

 room be discarded, and consumers of mushrooms should 

 familiarize themselves with this disease so as to know 

 and reject every mushroom showing a trace of it. 



Flock does not affect all the mushrooms in a bed at 

 any time, and I do not believe it spreads in the bed, or, 

 to use the expression, becomes contagious. If one spot 

 of mildew appears upon a cucumber, rose, or grape vine 

 indoors, and is not checked, it soon becomes general all 

 over the plant or plants, and if one spot of mold occurs 

 in a propagating bed and is not checked at once it soon 

 spreads over a large space and destroys every cutting or 

 seedling within its reach, but this is not the case with 

 flock in a mushroom bed. If one mushroom is affected 

 with flock every mushroom produced from that piece of 

 spawn is affected, but not one mushroom produced from 

 the pieces of spawn inserted next to this one is affected 

 by it ; not even if the mycelium from the several lumps 

 of spawn forms an interlacing web. If the flock is con- 

 fined to the mushrooms produced from a certain bit of 

 spawn some may ask, will the other pieces of spawn 

 brokfin from the same brick produce flock-infested mush- 

 rooms ? No. I have given this point particular atten- 



