286 
SMALLER FOREST PLANTS. 
woods in a given vegetable province would involve the final 
extinction of the smaller plants which are found only within 
their precincts. Some of these, though not naturally propa¬ 
gating themselves in the open ground, may perhaps germinate 
and grow under artificial stimulation and protection, and 
finally become hardy enough to maintain an independent 
existence in very different circumstances from those which at 
present seem essential to their life. 
not grow to the height of more than two feet, because it is no longer 
obliged to keep pace with the umbellifera which flourished among it.” See 
a paper by J. G-. Buttner, of Kurland, in Beeghatjs’ Geographisches Jahr- 
buch, 1852, No. 4, pp. 14, 15. 
These facts are interesting as illustrating the multitude of often obscure 
conditions upon which the life or vigorous growth of smaller organisms 
depends. Particular species of truffles and of mushrooms are found asso¬ 
ciated with particular trees, without being, as is popularly supposed, para¬ 
sites deriving their nutriment from the dying or dead roots of those trees. 
The success of Rousseau’s experiments seem decisive on this point, for he 
obtains larger crops of truffles from ground covered with young seedling 
oaks than from that filled with roots of old trees. See an article on Mont 
Yentoux, by Charles Martins, in the Revue des Deux Mondes , Avril, 1868, 
p. 626. 
It ought to be much more generally known than it is that most, if not 
all mushrooms, even of the species reputed poisonous, may be rendered 
harmless and healthful as food by soaking them for two hours in acidulated 
or salt water. The water requires two or three spoonfuls of vinegar or 
two spoonfuls of gray salt to the quart, and a quart of -water is enough for 
a pound of sliced mushrooms. After thus soaking, they are well washed 
in fresh water, thrown into cold water, which is raised to the boiling point, 
and, after remaining half an hour, taken out and again washed. Gerard, 
to prove that “ crumpets is wholesome,” ate one hundred and seventy-five 
pounds of the most poisonous mushrooms thus prepared, in a single month, 
fed his family ad libitum with the same, and finally administered them, in 
heroic doses, to the members of a committee appointed by the Council of 
Health of the city of Paris. See Figuier, VAnnee Scientifique , 1862, pp. 
853, 384. 
It has long been known that the Russian peasantry eat, with impunity, 
mushrooms of species everywhere else regarded as very poisonous. Is it 
not probable that the secret of rendering them harmless—which was 
known to Pliny, though since forgotten in Italy—is possessed by the 
rustic Muscovites ? 
