658 
Mushrooms  and  Fungi. 
("Am.  Jour.  Pharui. 
I  December,  1896. 
friend,  Mr.  S.  Edward  Paschall,  formerly  of  Doylestown,  now  of 
West  Chester,  than  whom  no  one  knows  more  about  what  a  mush- 
room will  and  will  not  do,  and  who,  by  his  indefatigable  labor  and 
persistent  experiments,  has  succeeded  in  making  an  American 
spawn,  which  is  more  productive  and  quicker  in  fruiting  than  the 
best  imported  spawn  from  either  England  or  France,  has  conclu- 
sively demonstrated  that  such  a  transmission  is  not  a  necessity.  It 
was  for  a  long  time  my  opinion — following  the  opinion  of  others — 
that  such  assistance  was  necessary.  In  my  many  efforts  to  propa- 
gate valuable  food  species  of  the  wild  toadstools,  I  endeavored  to 
find  the  method  by  which  the  spores  were  disseminated,  and  through 
what  digestive  medium  they  passed — either  of  insect  or  animal — 
before  germination.  Noticing  that  the  Russulae  were  fed  upon  by  a 
small  black  beetle,  I  planted  in  suitable  places,  not  the  toadstools, 
but  the  beetles  found  upon  them.  The  result  was  that  in  several 
instances  I  grew  the  Russulae.  My  experiments,  while  interesting, 
are  not  conclusive,  because  I  later  found  that  the  same  results  could 
be  obtained  from  the  toadstool  itself  when  planted  under  its  own 
natural  life  conditions. 
The  beetles  known  as  tumbler-bugs  deposit  eggs  in  the  centre  of 
balls  made  of  animal  droppings  ;  dig  a  hole  in  the  ground  and  dump 
them  into  it.  These  droppings  frequently  contain  the  spores  of  the 
meadow  mushroom.  Thus  planted  with  the  proper  surrounding  of 
manure,  and  at  the  proper  depth,  the  spores  germinate,  spread 
mycelium,  and  a  crop  of  mushrooms  is  the  result.  The  beetle  be- 
comes a  horticulturist.  No  wonder  the  Egyptians,  thousands  of 
years  ago,  made  it — the  scarabus — their  sacred  emblem,  and  that, 
to-day,  the  fleur-de-lis  of  France,  so  the  Rosicrucians  say,  per- 
petuates its  glorious  worth  and  calling. 
While  upon  the  subject  of  toadstool  propagation,  there  are 
several  species  which  will  amply  repay  the  attention  of  horticultur- 
ists. My  experiments,  but  few  of  which  were  successful,  have  thus 
far  shown  me  that  the  line  of  success  lies  in  assisting  toadstools  in 
disseminating  their  spores  and  mycelium  within  territory  and  condi- 
tions natural  to  them.  The  Lepiota  procerus — the  parasol  toad- 
stool I  have  described — can  be  grown  in  quantity  by  tramping  the 
ripe  spores  into  where  old  wood  piles  have  been,  and  into  leaf  mould 
on  the  margins  of  woods.  The  Cantharellus  cibarius,  also  described, 
and  one  of  the  most  prolific,  weight-giving,  palatable  toadstools  there 
