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Early kinds are fit for use in eight or nine weeks. The cobs 
aie gatheied beiore they are too old, boiled and served with pep- 
per, salt and butter. Good eating kinds are Adams Early, Early 
Dwarf Sugar, S.owell’s Evergreen and Large Missouri. 
Another way of using maize is to germinate the ripe seed by 
laying it on a stone or cement floor, damping it with water and, 
covering it with a wet cloth. When the seed has germinated, 
the loots, etc., are broken off from the hard outer seed coat and 
boiled. This makes an excellent vegetable. 
dhe chief enemies of maize here are a caterpillar which attacks 
the young Iruit, and the maize fungus Jjstilago Maydis which 
grows on the cobs, destroying them and covering them with a 
sooty mass. This disease, so destructive in other parts of the 
world, is, however, comparatively rare here. 
Mushrooms. 
Alt no ugh th English mushroom {Agancus campestris) is a 
native of the Malay Peninsula, occurring in Singapore, Penang 
and Pahang, no one seems to have been succe sful in cultivating 
it nere. I c appears very irregularly in old grass-plots, sometimes 
mu S °S e i qUantit y > an< ^ * s as * n flavour as the English one. 
I he Malays consider it unfit to eat, although they cat several 
o her species of Agaricus, one of which, a white k nd, grows on 
rotten wood in the jungles. This is tasteless and tough when 
c™ked, but it is very popular with them. 
A yellow ball-shaped fungus, Scleroderma aureum, Massee, 
growing commonly on paths in woods, is also said to be eatable' 
and to resemble truffles in flavour. An allied species is said to be 
eaten in Germanju • 
