Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1917-10-21

ern ATTITUDES to yield most appetizing
sprouts
new kind Of melon, that grows on trees,
is now being produced in California and
southern Florida. In size and shape it resem-
blcs longsh, smooth canteloupe and it is
the fruit of a small pam-like tree. One way
OF using 1t is to stew it with meat, as cabbage
and corned beef are prepared. A Juice OBJ
tanned by crushing the whole tree leaves in
Guided, is bottled as remedy for dyspepsia
and other stomach troubles
But perhaps the most neglected of all our
crops is the mushroom crop. The late Pro-.
fessor Attwater Of Middletown University,
the greatest chemist America has ever pro-
duced, left as his legacy for the whole coun-
try the demonstration that an edible mush-
room contains all the principal food elements
Of flesh fowl, fish vegetables and fruits
While the peoples of all of Europe and
Asia have been carefully gathering every
wild mushroom to make good their food
supply, and their armies in the field have
helped themselves to the luscious food,
America alone in the face of the highest cost
of living ever known, has overlooked the mil
lions of tons of this self-propogating plant
that have gone to waste, and dismissed as
''toadstools" what nature has everywhere
rendered to man for his main support
Botanlsts have III vain time and again
AdiHtu AlncllcdnS ludI the SuDDIY OF edible
mushrooms which annually goes to waste has
far greater cash value than the total agr-
cultural crop, and some have gone so far to
add the total manufactured products
The mushroom is always fruiting every
where on earth for man, beast, reptile, in
sect and bird In our northern States it
fruits continually from snow to snow. and
III our southern States, all the year around
The waste OF this vast food supply in Amer
lea is crime against humanity Every
European government strictly demands of
ITS citizens the complete conservation of the
wild mushroom supply. Government
wagons go among the people, directing the
harvesting OF mushrooms. Little mushroom
schools are IN every hamlet where townspeO-
pie and agriculturists alike are taught by
local experts each edible species-how to
gather, evaporate or can them, and how to
cook the diverse types. All over Europe and
Asia the dried mushroom is the common
stock for soups, and delicious soup at that
Numerous canneries in France pay rural
populations to gather the wild crops for can
nIng. The King of Saxony is the titular
head of the mushroom food supply board.
and Saxony leads the world in it's marvellous
government system of conservation of mrsh-
rooms. Russian and Poland populations
would have endured greater starvation and
hardships had it not been for this self-propo-
gated supply of food
So great has been the efforts of the. Rus
sian Moujiks to secure plentiful wild mush
room food supply that they have even gath
cred all of the poisonous species and put
them through vinegar and salt purfca-
ton IN hopes of extracting the toxic proper
ties and using the flesh pulp in safety. A
glance at the Consular reports will show
that in 1918 the year before the war, the
United States imported of these same wild
mushrooms dried and canned a total of s.
1863 pounds, or over 1000 tons, valued
abroad at $1,179,449, and sold to American
consumers at an advance of Is per cent.
we have it in our power to create vast
mushroom food supply in this country. great
err IN quantity than all other foods combined
The forty-cight States can easily during the
remainder OF the present year yield thou
sand tons of wild mushrooms each, or $4,000
tons IN all. Next year they should be col
lected to the extent of from 5000 to 10 600
tons each. The method of procedure would
probably be similar to that of France.