THE ESCULENT FUNGUSES OF ENGLAND. 
421 
" As all fresh funguses for sale in quan- 
tities exceeding ten pounds are weighed, in 
order to be taxed, we are enabled to arrive at 
an exact estimate of the number of pounds 
thus disposed of. The return of taxed Mush- 
rooms in the city of Rome during the last ten 
years, gives a yearly average of between 
sixty and eight)/ thousand pounds weight ; and 
if we double this amount, as we may safely 
do, in order to include such smaller untaxed 
supplies as are disposed of in bribes, fees, and 
presents, and reckon the whole at the rate of 
six baiocchi, or three pence per lb. (a fair 
average), this will make the commercial value 
of fresh funguses very apparent, showing it 
here to be little less than 2,000Z. a year. But 
the fresh funguses form only a small part of 
the whole consumption, to which must be 
added the dried, the pickled, and the pre- 
served ; which sell at a much higher price 
than the first.* Supposing, however, that 
with these additions the supply of all kinds 
only reached a sum the double of that given 
above, even this would furnish us with an 
annual average of nearly four thousand 
pounds sterling ; and this in a single city, and 
that, too, by no means the most populous one 
in Italy ! What then must be the net receipts 
of all the market-places of all the Italian 
States ? For as in these the proportion of the 
price of esculent funguses to butchers' 
meat is as two to three, it is plain, that pre- 
judice has deprived the poor of this country, 
not only of many thousand pounds of the 
former, but also of as much of the latter as 
might have been purchased by exchange, and 
of the countless sums which might have been 
earned in gathering them." — Introd. pp. 
vii.- — x. 
There is no country where fungi do not 
abound, and probably there is in none a lack 
of esculent species. The Russians are some- 
what famed for the number of Fungi which 
they employ as food — about fifty kinds. In 
some parts of Russia the peasantry are said to 
depend on mushrooms and bread for the 
greater part of their sustenance. Our author's 
foreign experience seems to be chiefly Italian ; 
he tells us : — 
"Italy is not the country for the English 
florist ; he will find twenty times as many 
petals at home. Trim parterres are not in- 
ventions of the south ; summer houses would 
be no luxuries in a climate that never 
knows winter ; the only conservatories that 
flourish there are not for flowers, but for 
music. In few northern regions is the 
Goddess of Flowers worse off for a bouquet 
than at Rome or Naples ; regarded merely as 
* " At from twenty to thirty baiocchi, i. e. at about 
Is. 3d. a pound." 
the herald of spring, and not appreciated for 
her own sake, as soon as she has waved her 
wand over the land and covered it with the 
March blossoms of Crocuses, Cyclamens, and 
Anemones, her reign is over. All scents are 
held in equal abhorrence save those of frank- 
incense and garlic, for which there seems to 
be a prescriptive toleration ; but every other 
odour, fetid or fragrant, musk or mignonette, 
is equally proscribed, and an Italian Signora 
would as soon permit a Locusta to cook for 
her, as a violet to scent her boudoir. To 
pick wild flowers is as dangerous as it is diffi- 
cult to find cultivated ones ; a coup de soleil 
or a fever is easily pi-ocured by imprudent 
exposure before sunset, while the interval 
between that and night is too brief to be em- 
ployed for the. purpose ; but when the season 
for flowers is long passed, and autumn with 
her fruits is come round again, when the 
stranger can wander forth where he lists 
without an umbrella, he will be able to luxu- 
riate amidst the lonely scenery, and to delight 
himself in the natural history of the district ; 
the season of the periodical rains has ceased ; 
the repose of the forest is no longer troubled 
by the power of the waters ; the mountain 
pines borne for miles down into the valleys 
are stranded on the broad shingly bed of the 
exhausted torrent ; broken bridges are safely 
repaired ; the maize is receiving the last 
mellowing touches as it festoons the cottage 
fronts, the prickly chestnut pods are beginning 
to gape and the brown chestnuts to leap out 
shining from their envelopes ; the last reluc- 
tant olive has been beaten from the bough ; 
the vintage has nearly ceased to bleed, night 
fires* already begin to flicker on the moun- 
tains, and the hemp stubble is daily crackling 
on the plain ; this is indeed the time for en- 
joying Italy ; nature has revived again, and 
with nature, man. The feverish torpor, I 
had almost ventured to call it the summer 
hybernation, has ceased with September, and 
autumn has come round with the vivifying 
influence of a new spring ; then if we go 
abroad to wander, whether our walk be across 
plains or through upland woods, we shall not 
stroll a mile without stopping a hundred times 
to admire what is to many of us a nearly new 
class of objects which have sprung up sud- 
denly and now beset our path on every side. 
These are the fungus tribe, which are as 
beautiful as the fairest flowers, and more 
useful than most fruits ; and now that but- 
chers' meat is bad, that the beans have 
* " Night fires ; this is to clear the ground under the 
Chestnut trees for the falling fruits, which might, 
otherwise be lost amidst the heath, but the practice is 
unsafe ; as many a tree has been charred by the flames, 
and some have actually tahen fire and given rise to a 
general conflagration." 
