Musher

“ She just said, “Well, of course, if you admit that your appetites have failed you, and if you really want the Girl Scouts to tell you what is in your own handbooks, I’ll remind you of the value of mushrooms.”
“Oh, is that so?” I said. “I know all about mushrooms and I can tell a mushroom from a toadstool or a footstool or a piano-stool or any other kind of a stool. But that’s not going to keep this blamed wagon here, is it?” ”

“ Rats is two kinds, the common and the mush. The common is the scourge of the world, but the mush he lives in the water and is highly respected. The fur of the mush is a article of commerce and keeps your hands warm when winter stalks abroad like a devouring kangaroon. If I was a mush I would keep my fur for my own self and say: “You fool humans can stay in the house and stand by the fire.” But Uncle Ned he says that would be bad for athletical sports, why not let them go out of doors,14 but keep their hands in one a others pockets as usual? ”

“ He carefully covers these with some pieces of dead bark and desiccated dung, so that none of ‘them lurching fellows as comes round shan’t see ’em’—with a wink at his own cunning—so as to preserve them till they have grown larger. He advises me never to partake of mushrooms unless certain that they have not grown under oak trees: he will have it that even the true edible mushroom is hurtful if it springs beneath the shadow of the oak. ”

“ A spurious fruit, a criminal, habitual vice itself, but preening in splendor and brilliance, a very cardinal of fungi. I break off a morsel to chew; it is good and soft on the tongue, but I am a coward and spit it out again. Was it not the poisonous mushroom that drove men berserker? But in the dawn of our own day, we die of a hair in the throat.
The sun is already setting. Far up the mountainside are the cattle, but they are moving homeward now ”

“ On hedge-banks, in pastures, and in what are called fairy-rings, there is a species of mushroom (Agaricus orcades) , with brownish or watery white gills, two or four in a set, a pale brown, convex, and irregular cover, and a whitish stem. These are considered by many persons to be the champignons of the French cooks. They have a much higher flavour than the common mushroom: but from their leathery nature are indigestible, except in the form of powder, with sauces, or in ketchup, in all of which they are very admirable. ”

“ He goes to the fields each autumn to harvest a dinner treat
For he knows which are deadly fungi, and which are the ones to eat.
Bill can talk by the hour on mushrooms and he laughs at my timid fears,
He is still in the land of the living and has eaten the things for years;
He is wise in the lore of the meadow, the swamp and the dark ravine,
And I'd say, of the mushroom experts, he's the best that I've ever seen. ”

“ Mush, mush, v.t. to notch, a dress-fabric ornamentally at the side with a stamp. [Prob. a form of mesh.]
Mushed, musht, adj. (prov.) worn out, exhausted.
Mushroom, mush′rōōm, n. the common name of certain fungi, esp. such as are edible: (fig.) one who rises suddenly from a low condition: an upstart.—n. Mush′room-spawn, the substance in which the reproductive mycelium of the mushroom is embodied. [O. Fr. mousseron, through mousse, moss—Old High Ger. mos (Ger. moos, moss) .]
Music, mū′zik, n. ”

“ Discoveries went on, nothing repetitive, the wind, no, the olive shade, or the moss and mushrooms. Crushing a mushroom he rubbed it against his thighs. The smell of mushroom in the cool, dark place! His smell and mine; the smell of earth: life was a vortex of fragrances, peace on the fringes, then a shepherd’s bell!
“I’ve wanted to be a shepherd,” I said.
“It would be too lonely for me,” he said. “It’s lonely enough at sea. I look for a sign of land, a strip of floating bark, land bird or turtle. ”

“ A few hours, and the under part of the ball breaks from the stock and the mushroom gradually spreads like an umbrella being opened and shows a line of pale pink, or flesh-coloured, gills, which become darker every hour until almost black, at which stage the mushroom becomes thin and rapidly decays. ”

“ In the common mushroom you will notice the gills are pliable; the flesh also can be bent without breaking. The milk-mushrooms and the Russulæ are very brittle; the gills do not mat down like the horse-mushroom, or the elm-tree mushroom; they break into small pieces, while the whole fungus snaps suddenly on being bent. If milk or juice comes, I advise the amateur to reject the specimens. A novice should not attempt to cook them. ”

“ A mushroom-bed of this kind should not be less than fifteen inches in thickness when thoroughly consolidated; and when so managed it will grow mushrooms just as well as dung. The sweepings of our streets and cattle markets, especially those parts that are paved and much frequented by horses—as, for example, cabstands, &c.—if collected when dry, and fermented a little, yield capital material for beds. Here from the cattle market we have the dung of horses, sheep, and cows mixed together in a finely divided state, the heating of which is gentle and regular. ”

“ No sooner does a public cook get at a mushroom than it begins to deteriorate. When the chef comes in at the door the savour flies out of the window. It is a point of honour with him. When therefore I said that one can never have enough mushrooms I meant at home. ”

“ Now listen whilst I tell of a third bihisti; not tall like the first, nor strong like the second, but bearing a more wonderful mushak than either. This mushak is small, not longer than my hand; it is very old too, and it is carried by a very feeble man. ”

“ They are not pot-hunters; they care much less for the physical pleasure of the appetite than for the close study of Nature that their inclination leads them into. Some day the delights of a mushroom hunt along lush pastures and rich woodlands will take the rank of the gentlest craft among those of hunting, and may perchance find its own Izaak Walton. ”

“ When I first sent my son with a fine basket of Imperials (A. Cæsareus) , to an intelligent physician, who was extravagantly fond of the common mushroom, the lad was greeted with the indignant exclamation, ‘Boy, I wouldn’t eat one of those things to save your father’s head!’ When told that they were eaten at my table, he accepted them, ate them, and has eaten many a one since, with all safety and with no little relish. Since that time our mycophagists eat whatever I send them, without fear or suspicion. ”

“ For popular utility from the food standpoint my selection presents, to all intents and purposes, a more than sufficient list, the species being easily distinguished, and, with proper consideration to their freshness, entirely safe and of sufficient frequency in their haunts to insure a continually available mushroom harvest throughout the entire fungus season. ”

“ In a quarter of an hour the tinted deposit is perceptible across the room, and in an hour, if we carefully raise the mushroom, the perfect spore-print is revealed in all its beauty—a spore-tint portrait of the under surface of the mushroom—a pink-brown disk with a white centre, which indicates the point of contact of the cut stem, and white radiating lines, representing the edges of the thin gills, many of them as fine and delicate as a cobweb. [Pg 281]
Every fresh species experimented with will yield its surprise in the markings and color of the prints. ”

“ No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there.”
John. Yes, that is the passage which I remembered when I saw the bear. After resting myself, I began again to search for mushrooms and fungus, and I have reason to be thankful that I was pretty successful: my pack lies yonder in the wood, full of the finest mushrooms I ever saw. To be sure, I did not get them without trouble; I climbed several trees, and had to creep up and down some very steep places. ”

“ At one end are several of us with lamps, admiring the young mushrooms budding all over the rows of beds, which, serpent-like, are long and slim, and coil away into the darkness. At about 150 feet distance there is a group of three men and a boy, each with a lamp, again dispelling the darkness from the mushroom beds, and occupied in placing small quantities of a sort of white clayey sand in the spots whence gatherings have been made a few hours previously. ”

“ The mushrooms are prepared by boiling, by which the water acquires an intoxicating quality, and is a sort of drink which the Tartars prize beyond all other. When the nobility and ladies are assembled, and the ceremonies usual between people of distinction over, the mushroom broth goes freely round, and they laugh, talk double-entendres, grow fuddled, and become excellent company. ”

“ This is the "shaggy-mane" mushroom, Coprinus comatus, the specific name signifying a wig—"from the fancied resemblance to a wig on a barber's block." Even a brief description is unnecessary with its portrait before us. It is a savory morsel, and it cannot be confounded with any other fungus. It frequently grows in such dense, crowded masses that a single group will afford a dinner for a family. ”

“ You will be astonished too at the immense number of spores contained in a single mushroom head, for they are reckoned by millions; and when we remember that each one of these is the starting point of a new plant, it reminds us forcibly of the wholesale destruction of spores and seeds which must go on in nature, otherwise the mushrooms and their companions would soon cover every inch of the whole world. ”

“ A Morel is—in the vernacular of the countryside—a sponge mushroom. It is to be found in ancient, unplowed orchards during the pastel phase of spring when apple trees blossom and bees zoom and bumble and hum in a languid shower of pink and white petals. ”

“ Mushrooms. —Certain fungi growing wild or in cultivated soils and having an expanded top on a hooded stem are known as mushrooms. The common form of mushroom (Agaricus campestris L.) grows wild over a large portion of the United States. It is especially abundant in the autumn, growing sometimes during the night after a warm rain, over large areas. When properly cooked it forms a delicious food and condimental substance, highly prized by connoisseurs and others. ”

“ The insect, especially in the larval stage, is the principal devourer of the mushroom. We must distinguish between two groups of consumers. The first really eat, that is to say, they break their food into little bits, chew it and reduce it to a mouthful which is swallowed just as it is; the second drink, after first turning their food into a broth, like the bluebottles. ”

“ The muscarius (Musky) , or rather Fly-killing, Reddish Mush-room, has a large head, which is nearly flat, being generally either white, reddish, or of a crimson hue, and covered with raised, compact, angular warts, that are sometimes thin, ragged, and flat. ”

“ Growing in woods, this deleterious species is extremely common, and without doubt very dangerous. The dirty pale-umber gills, and its habitat and time of growth—viz. the autumn—at once distinguish it from the delicious A. gambosus, fig. 19, Edible Sheet. It has a powerful and highly disagreeable odour, and brown spores, and we believe it is often mistaken by the ignorant for the true mushroom. ”

“ Those that have a white or yellow fur should be carefully avoided, though many of them have a similar smell, but not so strong and fragrant, as the genuine mushroom. Great numbers of these may be produced, by strewing on an old hotbed the broken pieces of mushrooms ”

“ But the appearance and peculiarities of a mushroom may be safely learned by the eye or the nose, and reasoning upon this information and the fact already well known, that mushrooms are good to eat, we arrive without any danger or trouble at the conclusion that the particular fungus before us is good to eat. ”

“ Unequal, short imperfect gills interspersed among the others. Universal, used in relation to the veil or volva which entirely envelops the mushroom when young. Variety, an individual of a species differing from the rest in external form, size, color, and other secondary features, without perpetuating these differences only under exceptional circumstances. Veil, in mushrooms a partial covering of the stem or margin of the pileus. ”

“ There are some 500 species of British mushrooms, and of these many are more or less poisonous, as the Fly mushroom (Agaricus muscarius) , which has a warted orange or scarlet cap, and possesses highly narcotic properties, causing delirium and death if eaten. Great care should be taken in gathering mushrooms to ensure that they are of the edible kind.
232.—BROWN ONION SAUCE. (Fr.—Sauce Bretonne.)
Ingredients.—2 Spanish onions, 1⁄2 a pint of Espagnole sauce, 1⁄2 a gill of haricot beans, seasoning, 2 ozs. of butter. ”

“ In these woods I then found very great plenty of Mushromes, and many of them then wither'd, and coal-black; but others new sprung and flourishing. They are some of them of a large size, and yet few much bigger than the Champignon or ordinary red-grilled eatable Mushrome, and very much of the shape of that; that is an exactly round cap, or crown, which is thick in flesh, and open deep gills underneath; a fleshy, and not hollow, round foot-stalk, of about six fingers breadth above ground, and ordinarily as thick as my thumb. The foot-stalk, gills, and cap, all of a milk-white colour. ”

“ It must be said for the system that it is the only one, with few, if any, exceptions, that has rendered American penitentiaries self-sustaining.
MUSHROOM GARDENING.
Chicago, Ill.
Tell us how to raise mushrooms. Are they produced from seed or not?
W.
Answer.—The mushroom spawn is sold in bricks, and should be used in the following manner: Procure a quantity of good horse dung and make it into a heap, which must be frequently turned for a fortnight, until the rankness has disappeared. Then build it into beds twelve inches in height and four feet wide, under a shed ten feet wide. ”