Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1898-09-01
TIPS ABOUT MUSHROOMS.
The Edible Kind May he Distinguished
by Their Pink ellis.

by Their Pink Giils.
The mushroom hunter has become q
feature of the rural landscape, quite as
much as the player of golf and his
swarm Of caddies. He goes forth in
the dewy morn with a basket; he in
spects his ~neighhor's lawn; he walks
with downcast, meditatiye eyes through
close-cropped pastures, and he returns,
IL the scout Of the Italian vender has
not preceded him, with a few dozen
~toothsome, kidnapped mushrooms, and
prepares for his family a feast Mt for
the gods. The truly scientific mycoph-
~agist-which. being interpreted, means
the eater Of fungi"-will stroll into
the woods and barnyards and along the
brooks, and c~onjure out OF the ground
ha~lf-a-dozen different kinds OF mush-
rooms, green capped, tawny capped
white capped, and even flaming scarlet
specimens, all Of which he will bring
home and eat with relish, repeating the
while, like syllables of some cabalistic
charm, their long and unintelligible
names. When this theological ex-
merit who makes for himself a break
fast of many colors, Is asked by the
ignorant epicure who obtains his mush-
rooms with dollars, instead Of brains,
whether he can tell the true mush-
room from a toadstool, he feels like a
good Presbyterian when asked II he
belongs 10 the church, and his reply,
whether couched in terms OF a text
hook or purely ~colloquial, is generally
70 the effect that there are others
Nevertheless, in spite Of the fact that
many mushrooms and so-called toad
stools are good to eat, everybody adj
mits that the field mushroom, agaricus
campestris, is the sweetest and nuttiest
and the most general ~favorite of them
ALL. It is the n that the French
raise as the "Boule de neige,' or
"~snoyball," in their celebrated caves.
II Is the one that looks like little but
IONS when it is young, and that is bot
tied for sauces. 1t is the one that with
dirty gray cap and short fat stem riv-
ais the dollhouse grapes and red-cheek-
cd pears In March. 1t is the one that
sprinS ana PINK IN the meau-
ows lot which the poor rise at
dawn either to substitute it pound for
mound for their daily beef or to convert
!, into solid cash. 1t is not hard to
understand how the venturesome, with
a little dangerous knowledge. sometimes
get poisoned by eating any palatable
looking mushroom they happen across
IN the woods, but 1t Is difficult to see
how any one who only means to eat
the mushroom can get hold of any 9TH
or. In the first place, it grows only in
fields. It has a deadly poison, snow
white cousin that grows in the woods.
But It may be known by its pure white
gills and the swollen knob at the base.
These are the earmarks Of the deadly
tribe of mushrooms that are RESPONSE
ble for most Of the fatal cases IN rec
ord. and it is we'll to leave every one
OF them alone. The field mushroom
grows low and squat, as its thick solid
stem is shorter than its cap Is broad.
II has a smooth top. that is rarely pure
white, more like a pair Of gloves that
are rather the worse for wear. and
sometimes, as in the big ones that are
cultivated for the market. its cap Ia OF
a gray earthly color. Underneath-and
here is the sure test-it has delicate,
thin, fesh-colored gills, that turn
brown on being broken. No other
mushroom that looks anything like the
field mushroom has such changeable
gills. The gills also turn brown as the
mushroom grows older, and in gather
ing them, il the gills are at all broken
and dull brown, it IL better to pass by
that plant, for even the field mush-