1899 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
831 
A NEGLECTED FOOD SUPPLY. 
Edible Puffballs and Their Nutritive Value. 
A WASTED FUNGUS.—Every schoolboy knows 
the big puffballs found dotting the pastures and cul¬ 
tivated places, at almost any time from midsummer 
until frost. They are particularly numerous just 
after rains following dry weather. There is a certain 
childish delight in kicking these big fellows to pieces, 
and but few Americans are aware that in this odd¬ 
looking vegetable growth lies packed about as much 
savory nourishment as in an equal weight of beef¬ 
steak, with the added great advantage over mush¬ 
rooms that there is no need to worry about possible 
poisoning. The past season has been very favorable 
to their growth, and it is depressing to think of the 
tons of palatable food that were wasted for lack of a 
general knowledge of its utility. In this locality, one 
could easily gather a bushel almost any morning from 
a five-acre lawn or pasture. There are numerous 
species of puffball to be found in the woods and fields, 
but the larger ones only are conveniently used as 
food. 
THE GIANT PUFFBALL.—Most has been written 
about the giant puffball (Lycoperdon giganteum), 
which grows from 10 to 15 inches 'in diameter. It is 
smooth and white, like kid, when young, and becomes 
brown when old. A group of them seen in the grass 
at a distance looks like a flock of little sheep. It is 
not common, except in the flats of certain river val¬ 
leys and parts of the coast, such as those about San 
Francisco Bay. In Europe it is very common near 
the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. One of these 
big fellows, when 'in proper condition, will furnish a 
meal for a whole family. An Italian authority says: 
“When the giant puffball is conveniently situated, 
you should only take one slice at a time, cutting it 
horizontally, and using great care not to 
disturb its growth, to prevent decay, 
and thus one may have a fritter every 
day for a week,” which is doubtless a 
good idea where there are few in the 
family. 
A FAMILIAR SPECIES.—The most 
abundant edible species, however, is the 
common puffball of meadows and grassy 
places (Lycoperdon cyathiforme), shown 
in Fig. 305. This picture shows a 
couple of fair-sized specimens, as they 
appear in the grass. The markings or 
reticulations which are always seen, ex¬ 
cept on very young specimens, are fairly 
well brought out. The color varies from 
white to brown. The average size is 
from three to five inches across, but not 
infrequently one is found to exceed 
eight or nine inches. When in good 
eating condition, during the first week 
of its growth, the flesh of a puffball is 
perfectly white, and of a curd-like con¬ 
sistency. Later it becomes streaked 
with yellow, and finally changes into a 
mass of brownish or dark purple powdery spores, 
which issue in a smoky cloud when the ball is com¬ 
pressed. A few recipes for cooking this abundant and 
useful food product, are given on page 841. Up to this 
time only one case of poisoning from eating puff¬ 
balls is recorded, and the injury done seems to have 
been slignt. The species suspected in this solitary in¬ 
stance, is a rough, hard, warty, yellowish-brown puff¬ 
ball, found about gardens and roadsides. It is known 
botanically as Scleroderma vulgare. It Is hard, and 
within, is purplish black, marbled with white. It is 
an open question whether it is really dangerous, but 
it is unattractive and easily distinguished from the 
useful species, which should always be eaten before 
the interior loses its freSh, clear white appearance, 
and becomes stained, crumbly or powdery. Any puff¬ 
ball over two inches in diameter with a firm, white, 
curdy interior, is perfectly safe. 
THE FOOD VALUE OF FUNGI—A great part of 
the common prejudice against the use of mushrooms 
and allied fungi for food, aside from the fear of poi¬ 
soning, undoubtedly arises from the general idea that 
they are too rapid and fugitive in their growth to be 
either substantial or really wholesome. We walk 
through the pastures to-day and see no trace of a 
mushroom or puffball; to-morrow, white or brownish 
buttons are seen pushing through the turf, and on 
the following morning we gather the mushrooms, to 
be followed shortly by puffballs as large as cocoanuts. 
The real plants, however, known as mycelium, are 
masses of tiny white threads, starting from a “seed” 
or spore, which is a microscopic grain of the smoky 
powder discharged by the ripe fruit. The mycelium 
has been quietly growing beneath the sod for months, 
and perhaps years, feeding upon the plant food hidden 
in the soil, just as the grass roots do. The mushroom 
or puffball Is only the fruiting stem, pushed up to ac¬ 
complish its purpose of maturing and disseminating 
its spores for the perpetuation of its species, like 
more highly organized plants. Numerous experiments 
and analyses have shown that most edible fungi are 
quite similar to meat in their composition, and about 
as nutritious. It is entirely possible to preserve ex¬ 
cellent health with the exclusive use of mushrooms or 
puffballs for food, but in this country, with its great 
variety of food materials, they are more likely to be 
eaten only as an occasional delicacy. 
GREAT INTEREST IN COLD STORAGE. 
A recent issue of the National Provisioner contains 
a sensible article on cold storage and diet, in which 
the following statements are made: 
The importance of refrigeration and of refrigerating ap¬ 
paratus to the commerce of the world, in the distributing 
of its perishable food supply, is demonstrated by the fact 
that every large steamer of consequence carries its cold 
chambers. There is not an important seaport in civiliza¬ 
tion but that receives at some season of the year a ship 
or a train which hauls into or out of it meats, A'egetables, 
fruit, milk, wine, beer, or other degenerating substances 
in cold storage chambers. There is not a hotel, restaurant, 
butcher shop, or grocery of any pretentions in this coun¬ 
try or elsewhere that has not some sort of cooler or ice¬ 
box for the preservation of perishable products. Ten years 
ago we starved or famished in turn because of the un¬ 
equal distribution of articles of diet. Our food was then 
at the mercy of the elements. Now acres of garden pro¬ 
ducts are housed away for future and gradual use. Eggs 
are gathered and stored by the tens of millions. These, 
once upon a time, clogged the market at six cents per 
dozen or were a luxury at 60 cents for the same quantity. 
The supply and the price are now reasonably uniform. 
Butter which, in recent years, became rancid, is now 
frozen, kept indefinitely and evenly distributed. Fruit is 
distributed in and out of season at will. Cold storage 
has been the equalizer of markets, and of values. It has 
made it possible to feed the people of one clime with the 
guarded products of another. 
There is no doubt about the truth of these state¬ 
ments. We have never known the time when farm¬ 
ers talked so much about cold storage as they do this 
Fall. Fruit growers especially feel the need of some 
economical way of holding their products away from 
the glutted market. This Fall, for example, there is 
unusual complaint about the poor keeping qualities of 
apples. For some reason the apples are rotting earlier 
and faster than ever before, and large growers all over 
the country are attempting some method of cold 
storage. We know of one large grower who has put 
large upright pipes through his Louses, keeping these 
pipes filled with cracked ice and salt. This is paying 
fairly well, but is not entirely satisfactory, and he is 
now meditating the purchase of an ammonia plant 
before another season. This man has a crop of apples 
which, if they could be held until February, would 
pay the entire cost of a cold-storage plant in one 
season. In fact, fruit growers everywhere are seri¬ 
ously considering this problem. One Hudson River 
strawberry grower told us last week that with a 
small cold storage house, he could keep Gandy straw¬ 
berries until late in July or early in August, and then 
sell them to mountain hotels at a fancy price with 
great profit. At the recent meeting of institute work¬ 
ers at Geneva, probably no one thing was of more 
general interest than the very complete cold-storage 
plant in the new dairy buildings. The idea seems to 
be that there is no reason why the large dealers and 
handlers in the city should obtain all the benefit that 
is derived from holding products out of their season. 
This is a wise conclusion, and we have no doubt that 
during the coming year a good many houses of mod¬ 
erate size will be built on the farms. 
Shelter belts of castor-oil plants are recommended by 
an Australian authority as a protection against locusts. 
I lave our western friends tried this in any degree? 
The Cornell Forestry Department will give a course in 
fish culture during the Spring term. The object of the 
course is to instruct in the purposes, methods and results 
of fish culture in this country. 
THE TROUBLESOME WHITE GRUB. 
New Facts About His History. 
This season the White grub has had his innings through¬ 
out this section. Strawberries have suffered serious in¬ 
jury, and constant filling in of gaps during the Summer 
has not availed to give a good stand of plants for next 
season’s fruiting. They have never before been so nu¬ 
merous and destructive upon my own land, and yet, at 
the time of plowing last Spring, I did not notice any. 
There are a few persons who still persist that the use of 
old barnyard manure brings them, but doubtless they are 
mistaken, as all scientific writers agree that the worm 
in the manure is a different species from our enemy, the 
June beetle (Lachnostema). The life history of the latter 
has been frequently written out, but there are a few 
points not yet clear to me. In a general way we know 
that the life of the insect Is three years. The eggs are 
laid in June (say 1899) and hatch in a few weeks. The 
worm is small and is not able to cause great damage this 
Summer. In 1900 he feeds the entire season, perhaps up 
to October. But of his behavior the next Summer (1901) 
I am a little in doubt. About what time does he stop 
feeding and pupate, and in what stage does he pass the 
Winter? 
I think we seldom have two seasons in succession in 
which they are very destructive, and this would indicate 
that they eat but a short time early in the season during 
this third Summer. Will Prof. Slingerland please tell us 
about the latter part of its life? As to remedies, we 
must avoid using land likely to be infested, such as run¬ 
out grass land and land which has grown strawberries for 
a number of years. Possibly very late Fall plowing will 
give them a serious check. The use of sulphur in the soil 
at time of setting plant was tried by a neighbor this sea¬ 
son, but this was not disagreeable to them. An acquaint¬ 
ance says that a sure cure is dipping roots in a mixture of 
two quarts wood ashes to half a pail of water. It cer¬ 
tainly seems as though there must be some method which 
would make the roots of the plant distasteful to the in¬ 
sects. j. w . B . 
Massachusetts. 
It is only during the past year that there has been 
recorded any definite experiments regarding the full 
l'ife-history of the White grub. Several years ago 
Prof. Forbes recorded that, soon after 
the brown beetles emerge in May or 
June, they lay their eggs, usually in 
grass lands, from an inch to three 
inches below the surface of the soil, each 
egg being enclosed separately in a little 
cavity just large enough to hold it. He 
found that the eggs hatched in from 10 
to 18 days, and that the grubs fed upon 
the roots of living vegetation during the 
growing season, usually retiring in No¬ 
vember to a greater or less depth below 
the surface, depending upon the severity 
of the weather, and coming up again 
within reach of food some time in March 
or April. From the fact that the beetles 
usually appear in the greatest numbers 
every third year, entomologists have 
theorized that their life-cycle, from the 
laying of the egg to the appearance of 
the beetles which develop therefrom, is 
three years. 
During the present year, the Di¬ 
vision of Entomology at Washington 
has published, in Bulletin 19, the 
following definite record of the complete life- 
cycle of one of the most common kinds of White 
grubs. May 13, 1893, beetles of both sexes were placed 
in boxes containing growing grass, the beetles being 
supplied with oak branches bearing leaves for their 
food. Egg laying began June 8, and continued for 
several days. June 19, the eggs began hatching, thus 
giving a period of at least 11 days. At a subsequent 
time an egg-laying period was observed to be 13 days. 
The observations were continued, with the result that 
on August 8, 1895, one of the White grubs transformed 
to the pupa stage, and on August 31, it changed to the 
beetle, thus giving a pupal period of 23 days, or a 
total period of two years and 51 days from the time 
of the laying of the egg until the formation of the 
beetle. The grubs transform to pupae in earthen cells 
in the soil, and in the same cell the beetle emerges 
from the pupa. In the case of most of our May 
beetles, this transformation through the pupa to the 
adult stage takes place in early Autumn, but the 
beetles usually remain in the earthen cell, made by 
the grub, and occupie.d by the pupa, from August or 
September until the following May or June. Thus 
nearly three years elapses from the time the egg is 
laid until the adult insect or beetle appears above the 
ground, but it takes only a little more than two years 
for the development of the Insect from the egg to the 
beetle, and then the beetle remains in the soil for 
eight or nine months before it appears above ground, 
thus making three years from the death of the parent 
beetles until the emergence of their progeny as 
beetles. 
The dipping of the roots of strawberries in a mix¬ 
ture of two quarts of wood ashes to half a pail of 
water would seem to me to be a dangerous method, 
unless the ashes had been previously leached, and 
then I doubt whether the use of leached ashes would 
have any effect. m. v. slingerland. 
COMMON EDIBLE PUFFBALL (Lycoperdon Cyathiforme). Fig. 305. 
