The cultivation of mushrooms is an horti cultural operation, and is therefore not dis cussed in detail in this place. For the benefit of prospective growers, however, it may be said that the market possibilities have not by any means been attained and that the price at present paid for the fresh product makes it a paying business where the condi tions are favorable and where good care and the best cultural intelligence are brought to bear on the work.
TVild mushrooms.
The wild mushroom product, being depen dent on the season, is very variable. In the United States the wild mushrooms which reach the market may, for all practical pur poses, be said to consist only of A. campes Iris and its allies, and the food value of the vast number of other common edible forms is appre ciated by an individual only here and there. In Europe, more than in any other country, perhaps, the wild mushroom is a sub-staple article of food. In many instances there are municipal or state regulations governing the species which may be legitimately sold. Gen erally as many as six spe cies are legitimately sold, and in extreme instances the list may run as high as forty species. From France to western Russia, or from Scandinavia to Italy, during the mush room season, one may find one or more species of wild mushrooms on the market of both village and city. A knowledge of common forms is, therefore, well dissemi nated. Nevertheless,even in those countries, mis takes are made, and cases of poisoning, among the peasantry particularly, are from time to time re ported. This is not sur prising, however, when one finds that some of the more ignorant classes pay no attention what soever to the possibility of poisoning except from one or two well -known species.
Writing in 1876, a French botanist reported the sale of more than seventy thousand pounds of wild mushrooms on the market of the small city of Nantes. In 1901, the sale of wild mushrooms in the vegetable markets of Munich amounted to about two million pounds, and this does not include the amount dried and sold out of season. Of the amount last mentioned, it is true, however, that about six species (or groups of related species) furnished practically nine-tenths of the total product. Some of the important species of this market will be referred to later.
How to distinguish the mushrooms.
It has been stated that there is no one mark by means of which an edible mushroom may be known from a poisonous species. In order to use
the wild forms of the cultivated mushroom, or to cultivate the wild forms which may be of value, it is necessary to know something of the form and appearance of the important groups of these plants. Unfortunately, the child seldom grows up with such knowledge of these plants as it has attained in the case of the birds or snakes which it may also have seen in field or forest. The cultivated mushroom (Agariens catnpestris) is perhaps best known, and its general appearance may therefore be described, before attempting to compare with it the wild edible species.
The general umbrella form of the plant is famil iar to all. In its different varieties the color may vary from almost white to deep brown or even sometimes to purplish brown, so far as the cap, or upper expanded part, is concerned. Moreover, the plant consists of a centrally placed stipe, or stem, three or more inches high, bearing the expanded cap. Toward the upper end of the stem, in the mature plant, there is attached a small ring, or annulus, and in the early stages this ring is in the form of a veil, that is, a structure connecting the edges of the cap, technically known as the pileus, with the stem. This veil protects on the under side of the cap certain plate-like radial structures, which reach practically from the stem to the per iphery of the cap. These plate-like structures are known as the gills, or lamella, and in young speci mens of this genus they are invariably some form of pink, but on the breaking away of the veil and exposure to the air they soon become brown and eventually brown-black. These characters enable one to distinguish this species with absolute cer tainty from any injurious form. The umbrella shape, the annu lus, and the gills are common to many species and even to genera ; but the umbrella shape coupled with the presence of an annulus (no other appendages being present on the stem) and with the pink gills becoming brown-black, can n o t be confused with those of un desirable forms. It should be borne in mind, however, that there are dif ferences in t h e color of the varie ties of this spe cies. Again, there may be slight dif ferences in the form of the annu lus, in the shape of the stem, and other features.