they import large quantities from Japan and other islands of the 
Pacific ocean. In some of the cities of Europe, the consumption 
of them is so great that a superintendent of the market is em- 
ployed to inspect those offered for sale, and to destroy those that 
are unwholesome or unfit for food. In this way it has been as- 
certained that more than thirty tons are annually consumed in 
Rome alone! They are not used by the poorer classes of people 
exclusively, for the wealthy and the nobility are apparently as 
fond of them as any other class. They are served at the tables of 
the hotels and on great occasions. 
In this country, the high price of the common or cultivated 
mushroom (usually fifty cents to a dollar a pound) excludes it 
from the tables of the poor who live in cities or where they are 
unable to gather it in the wild state; but, fortunately for them, 
there are many other species quite as good as this, which it is 
possible to have in the season for the trouble of gathering. No 
labor is expended in their cultivation, no costly hot-houses or 
mushroom cellars are occupied by them; nature produces them 
at her own expense, and often in great abundance. They afford 
palatable and nutritious food; and yet they are generally al- 
lowed to decay where they grew. In this state alone, at least 
seventy-five species are known to occur that are available for 
food. There are here also nearly six hundred other fleshy or 
similar fungi, many of which will doubtless yet be found to be 
edible. JExperimenters are already in the field, and additions 
are frequently made to the esculent list. It is true that some are 
of small size, or of rare occurrence or limited range; but others 
occur with frequency, are of fair size and wide range, and in fa- 
vorable seasons and localities are found in great profusion. Some 
occur early in the season, others in midsummer, and many in 
late summer and in autumn; so that there is a succession of 
crops, which in wet seasons at least make an almost continuous 
supply possible. 
They constitute a very nutritious and sustaining diet. Chemi- 
cal analysis, as well as experience, indicates this. The former 
has shown that they contain in their dry matter from 20 to 50 
per cent. of protein or nitrogenous material, and they may there- 
fore be called a vegetable meat, and be used as a substitute for 
animal food. 
Like other vegetables, they are largely composed of water, 
which generally constitutes 80 or 90 per cent. of the whole. So 
much water causes them to shrivel greatly in drying, and so 
much nitrogenous material induces rapid decay and loathsome 
4 
