The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-09-12 00:00:00

of at least twenty-eight ounces a week, meet be consumed try
every man who has to work daily, either with his body or
with his brain. "It is vain to expect either brain or muscles
to do edlcient work," says Dr. Lankester, "when they an
not provided with the proper material"
Meat is probably the best form of flesh-forming food. In
a pound of beef there is the same amount of nitrogenous food
as in two pounds of eggs, live pounds of rice, or sixteen
pounds of potatoes. But in many parts of England meat
scarcely ever makes its appearance on the tables of the work-
ing classes bread ena cheese and potatoes—all excellent in
their way—form the main portion of the poor man's Met.
Bat although cheese is essentially a flesh-forroing article of
food-- its chief constituent, meet,* being identical in com-
position with tibrine and albumen—it is an iedigestible and
unsatisfactory substitute for meat. Bread and potatoes con-
tain, indeed. flesh-forming material—the former in fair pro-
portion. But it is not easy for the poor man to obtain a
sufficient quantity of these articles of food to supply the
daily drabs which work makes upon his strength. In fact,
despite the compliments of Pnolessor Mantegarsa upon the
superior feeding of the English, no one who has traversed
our rural districts can doubt that in many parts of England
the working man is underfed.
it becomes intportant, therefore, to nctice that in mush-
rooms we have a form of food which is principally nitro•
gowns, or liesh-forming, and which is at the same tirne
easily digestible, agreeable to the palate, and cheap. Bet-
tweeji two and three thousand species of fungi are now re-
cognised, and there are about one hundred genera. Of these.
as is well knot.. ooily one species, the ogoricie compeer*
is commonly eat., though the champignon agarietts
atenee and the truffle tuber cibarium)are also recognised
edibles. lint as a matter of fact by far the larger number of
suedes are safe articles of food, and a considerable propor-
tion are very agreeable to the palate. In China, India, and
.Vriea mushrooms have for a long time been consumed in
very large quantities, and more recently many species have
Is en used on the continent of Europe. In Italy, as we have
elated, mushrooms are regularly e-ltivated, one layer sue-
...cling another, so sate a. 1.1 Cant supply.
Ste need hardly point out tit." fact that, when mushrooms
are t egularly cultivated in this way. all danger that pot-
s, notes fungi might lie mistaken for wholesome varieties I.
avoided. It would Inc as likely that by some accident one of
tie p oisonous varieties of that vegetable family to which the
potato belongs should be cultivated in our English fields by
mistake for the wholesome varieties, as that poisonous mush-
r, -on. should make their appearance among the products of
the Italian mushroom... But, iu reality, even among
, wild mushrooms, the poisonous sorts forts but a small
minority. 'they may also be readily distinguished by their
' elope:trance, their .offensive smell, anti their bitter, astringent,
01' cryptic taite. If persons who gather mushrooms follow
the simple plan sit avoiding all those which grow lit caverns
anal subterranean places, or 011 putrefying animal matter, or
c Melt have any unpleasantness either of odour or flavour,
there is absolutelt no danger whatever that une holesome
verieties will be ntade use of. One other circumstance must
eko I be mentioned, Even wholesome ni.hrooma will
I', cone untlt tor food if not eaten fresh, or carefully dried
and pickled while still in that condition itiushrooms should
io fact be treated much as flesh would be. They closely
ro semble flesh in taste mid odour, and they putrefy like
It, oh, only much more quickly.
We are led to make these remarks by noticing that in one
text of Great Britain the sale of mushrooms has become a
aignised part of the operations of the year. Near Whit-
t .1, Carmarthenshire, mushrooms are gathered in the fields
oboring summer, and sold in the neighbouring towns, thus
f rinitig a considerable addition tot he means of the peasantry.
year, owing too the heavy rains which followed a long-
c• oitinued drought, the mushroom harvest has been so coni-
c lerable that the fields have been crowded with men.
s omen, and children employed to gathering the common
e isle species. Shopmen are giving 3.1. and Ott. for every
5. o it eight, and sending them by rail to every part of Eng-
l. id. Set the working classes of England would reject with
it, rbion the notion or making mushroems a regular article
of their own food, though those which they gather for a
moderate price, awl numberless other species which they
I, ire to rot 011 the fields, would serve to supply their tables
Oth toed at once more nutritious, more agreeable to the
p .late, and cheaper, than any which their means at present
o able them to procure.