ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN's ASSOCIATION. 83 



on the excrements of cat{le,some on dead twigs,some on living leaves 

 some on the skins of animals and some in decomposing fluid sub- 

 stance. We can hardly imagine a place on or in the earth, or organic 

 substance of any kind, where or upon which fungi are not found of 

 one kind or another. We pride ourselves upon our cleanliness, but 

 it is not hazardous to assert that every human being in our broad 

 prairie state has living fungi in his mouth. Nevertheless the ubi- 

 quitous beings are subject to prescribed conditions of growth. They 

 must have the proper food each according to its kind, the proper 

 amount of moisture, the proper degree of heat etc. The well in- 

 formed advocate of spontaneous generation of organic species does 

 not think of asserting that the specific forms now existing are self- 

 produced from the inorganic elements. Whether this process is ever 

 true or not, even the lowest forms that can be classified and so 

 distinguished as fungi have, as all scientists admit, sprung from 

 parents like themselves. If spontaneous generation is true, it applies 

 to still lower living atoms, which reach characteristic distinctiveness 

 only through long series of development and so gradual change as 

 scarcely or not at all to be noticed within the span of a human life. 

 We may therefore say the species of fungi are as distinct as those of 

 the higher plants with which we are better a«3quainted. 



Again, the names mold or mildew are very often used in con- 

 nection with such fungi as are supposed to be the cause of disease, of 

 fermentation, putrefaction, etc. But these are so general in their 

 application that little or no information can be conveyed by their 

 use. If restricted to such species as are so commonly met with on 

 bread, cheese, fruits, etc., the popular statements in regard to their 

 effects are much exaggerated. For a long time it was supposed that 

 yeast used in the making of bread and beer was a submerged form 

 of various species of true molds, but this is conclusively shown to be 

 an error. The blue mold that forms on bread is not the same or 

 nearly the same which causes the fermentation of the flour in the 

 process of raising. The molds of different kinds which appear 

 around the edges of a neglected milk pan bear no relation to the 

 much simpler form which induces the souring. It is probable that 

 the species of molds in a restricted sense, do cause some of the phe- 

 nomena to which this paper is devoted, but they are far from being 

 the principal agents in the work. When they occur on milk that has 

 stood in a warm place for some time it may be observed that there 

 is a conspicuous absence of the putrid odor arising from such milk 



