In the autumn of 1868 the first Fungus Foray was made to Holme Lacey, under the superintendence of our staunch friends, Messrs. Lees and Worthington Smith. These forays have gradually grown in interest, increasing numbers join them, and an abundant supply of papers notifying new facts and discoveries is annually read.
Many of the most distinguished mycologists have done us the honour of attending them. The Club will be proud to mention the names of Berkeley, Brooms, Cooke, Currey, Plowright, Phillips, Ronny, Vizo, Houghton, Percival, Cornu, De-Seynes, and several others who have again and again been present at our forays.
The active interest of our members in the study of funguses was at once excited by calling attention to the edible kinds. It was shown that a large amount of vegetable matter containing nitrogen, hitherto allowed to waste your after year, might be utilised as food. Experience has shown, however, that an ides so philanthropic is not in England practically feasible. Tew species of Agaric are edible, more are tasteless or disagreeable, and some that are poisonous are unfortunately too common.
The comparative scarcity of uncultivated land in this country, and the uncertain and, as it were, capricious growth of Agarics, pub quite out of the question any reliance on them as a source of food for the people, the more especially as other food is happily so abundant. It still remains, however, for the scientific epicure to distinguish and profit by them, as he assuredly may do, and gather from them as varied and delicious relish.
The study of Mycology deserves all the ardour with which it has been recently followed; to it we owe the knowledge of those destructive agents, the various kinds of moulds, smuts, rusts, &c., that are called blight. The term blight is too indefinite. It is indiscriminately applied to funguses, to insects, and to diseases caused in the young and tender parts of plants by sudden alterations in the temperature or the amount of moisture in the atmosphere. Most living plants and animals are at times more or less infested with funguses, which are nourished at their expense, very often to the eventual destruction of both. Some of these parasites attack man himself, as shown by the production of various kinds of ringworm and thrush. The belief is growing that diphtheria, cholera, low fevers, and other such complaints, may be caused by microscopic funguses. It is an unhappy fact that these parasitical pests take up a residence on those vegetables that are the most useful to man, viz., those which produce starch, Of these the cereals are the most important. Rust and mildew attack the leaves, stem, and bracts, while ergot, smut, and bunt attack the organs of fructification of barley, wheat, rye, oats, maize, rice, and other cereals.
The corn rust and mildew are the same species of Puccinia in different stages of growth. It may be found on almost every grass in every part of the world; but it seems to have a preference for wheat. General attention appears to have been directed to it for the first time in 1804, when Batter made drawings for George III. The wheat of that
