91 
whom we all look as our botanical authority, wrote, in answer to 
my letter, as follows : — 
“ I am sorry I can give you no help about the fungi. I have not studied 
them, and as I liave found genuine mushrooms very jilentiful, and very cheap 
in Norwich, I have carefully avoided hazardous experiments. If 1 had time, 
I should much like to go in for them as a study.” 
I mention these circumstances, and quote this letter, simply to 
illustrate, from amongst ourselvc.s, the truth of the statement, 
that a want of knowledge, coujded with prejudice, and thence a 
wholesome fear, are the reasons why, with u.s, in contradi.stinctiou 
to our Clontinental neighbours, esculent fungi do not form an 
important article of food and commerce. 
I remember being particularly struck with the large (luantities 
of fresh fungi in the markets of Eome, Naples, and Venice, in the 
autumn of 1869. In these cities are inspectors, whose duty it is 
to see that the fungi offered for sale are not only of the species 
considered by them to bo esculent, but also that they are all per- 
fectly fresh, and fit for human food. I am not so well versed, as 
perhaps I ought to be, in the details of our recent Sanitary Acts, 
and therefore I am not aware if any special provision has been 
made in them to secure to us the same advantage and immunity 
enjoyed by the Italians. Is it expected or required of our future 
medical officers of health, that they should possess a practical 
knowledge of fungology 1 It is to bo hoped that our far-seeing 
legislators have not omitted this, as such a requirement would not 
only have the effect of leading medical men, in their student life, 
to become acquainted with a branch of botany at present almost 
entirely neglected, but would also, to a certain extent, be the means 
of giving confidence to the public, by securing that the fungi 
exposed for sale, if not strictly common mu.shrooms, were, at all 
events, fit for human food, and thus a stop would be gained towards 
doing away with the ignorance and prejudice now surrounding the 
subject. 
In Badham’s work on esculent fungi are some curious statements 
as to the consumption of fungi in Italy. He says that in Eome 
itself the commercial value of fresh and dried fungi averaged 
annually £4000. Eome, at that time, {i.e., 25 years since,) had 
only 1 50,000 inhabitants, and “ what ” he says, “ must be the net 
I 
