ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
83 
on the excrements of cattle,some on dead twigs,some on living leaves 
some on the skins of animals and some in decomposing fluid sub¬ 
stance. We can hardly imagine a place on or in the earth, or organic 
substance of any kind, where or upon which fungi are not found of 
one kind or another. We pride ourselves upon our cleanliness, but 
it is not hazardous to assert that every human being in our broad 
prairie state has living fungi in his mouth. Nevertheless the ubi¬ 
quitous beings are subject to prescribed conditions of growth. They 
must have the proper food each according to its kind, the proper 
amount of moisture, the proper degree of heat etc. The well in¬ 
formed advocate of spontaneous generation of organic species does 
not think of asserting that the specific forms now existing are self- 
pi oduced from the inorganic elements. Whether this process is ever 
true or not, even the lowest forms that can be classified and so 
distinguished as fungi have, as all scientists admit, sprang from 
parents like themselves. If spontaneous generation is true, it applies 
to still lower living atoms, which reach characteristic distinctiveness 
only through long series of development and so gradual change as 
scarcely or not at all to be noticed within the span of a human life. 
We may therefore say the species of fungi are as distinct as those of 
the higher plants with which we are better acquainted. 
Again, the names mold or mildew are very often used in con¬ 
nection w ith such fungi as are supposed to be the cause of disease, of 
fermentation, putrefaction, etc. But these are so general in their 
application that little or no information can be conveyed bv their 
use. If restricted to such species as are so commonly met with on 
bread, cheese, fruits, etc., the popular statements in regard to their 
effects are much exaggerated. For a long time it was supposed that 
yeast used in the making of bread and beer was a submerged form 
of various species of true molds, but this is conclusively shown to be 
an error. The blue mold that forms on bread is not the same or 
nearly the same which causes the fermentation of the flour in the 
process of raising. The molds of different kinds which appear 
around the edges of a neglected milk pan bear no relation to the 
much simpler form which induces the souring. It is probable that 
the species of molds in a restricted sense, do cause some of the phe¬ 
nomena to which this paper is devoted, but they are far from being 
the principal agents in the work. When they occur on milk that has 
stood in a warm place for some time it may be observed that there 
is a conspicuous absence of the putrid odor arising from such milk 
