76 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



flavour and for their value as food. Of this latter quality I had 

 become so well convinced that, during our late war, I sometimes 

 averred (and I doubt if there was much, if any, exaggeration in 

 the assertion) that in many parts of the country, I could maintain 

 a regiment of soldiers five months of the year upon Mushrooms 

 alone. 



This leads to a remark, which should not be overlooked, upon 

 the great abundance of eatable Mushrooms in the United States. 

 I think it is Dr. Badham who boasts of their unusual number in 

 Great Britain, stating that there are thirty edible species in 

 that kingdom. I cannot help thinking that this is an under- 

 estimate. But if the Doctor is correct, there is no comparison 

 between the number in your country and this. I have collected 

 and eaten forty species found within two miles of my house. 

 There are some others within this limit which I have not yet 

 eaten. In the ' Catalogue of the Plants of North Carolina ■ you 

 will find that I have indicated 111 species of edible Fungi known 

 to inhabit this State. I have no doubt there are forty or fifty 

 more, as the Alpine portion of the State, which is very extensive 

 and varied, has been very little explored in search of Fungi. 



In October 1866, while on the Cumberland Mountains in Ten- 

 nessee, a plateau less than 1000 feet above the valley below, 

 although with little leisure for examination during the two days 

 spent there, I counted eighteen species of edible Eungi. Of the 

 four or five species which I collected there for the table, all who 

 partook of them, none of whom had before eaten Mushrooms, 

 declared them most emphatically delicious. On my return home- 

 ward, while stopping for a few hours at a station in Virginia, I 

 gathered eight good species within a few hundred yards of the 

 depot. And so it seems to be throughout the country. Hill 

 and plain, mountain and valley, woods, fields, and pastures swarm 

 with a profusion of good nutritious Fungi, which are allowed to 

 decay where they spring up, because people do not know how, or 

 are afraid, to use them. By those of us who know their use, their 

 value was appreciated, as never before, during our late war, 

 when other food, especially meat, was scarce and dear. Then 

 such persons as I have heard express a preference for Mush- 

 rooms over meat had generally no need to lack grateful food, as 

 it was easily had for the gathering, and within an easy distance 

 of their homes, if living in the country. Such was not always 

 the case, however. I remember, on one occasion during the 



