Miss Corson's practical American cookery and household management

The most familiar of all the edible fungi is the agaric. With the bestknown variety, the agaricus campestris (the true meadow mushroom, or pink-gill), every lover of good dinners is ac- quainted, as this is the champignon cultivated extensively in Europe, and imported largely into this country in cans. It is often met with in our own markets. Its color is white, its gills pink when fresh, gradually turning brown after gathering. Its cap, from three to six inches in diameter, is plump and white, or cream-color, covered with a fine down ; and its flesh is firm and white, with a pinkish tinge. The stem bears a welldefined white ring, which disappears as the mushroom dries. In bright, open, sunny pastures, the mushrooms disappear after the sun is high, and searchers for them seek their evanescent treasures early in the day : in more shaded localities, where there is much moisture, they sometimes grow until nightfall. In the mushroom caves and in the gardeners' hotbeds, where they are sheltered from the direct rays and heat of the sun, they seem to last longer, and to attain a larger growth ; but their flavor is less intense than that of the outdoor mushroom : there is almost as much difference in the flavor of cultivated and field-grown mushrooms as there is between the flavor of poultry and game-birds. However, during an experiment made in raising mushrooms in the cellar of a New- York house, specimens from two to six inches diameter in the cap, firm in texture, and of full, high flavor, were raised, some of them growing in the beds for two or three days : it may be mentioned here, that from one spot about the size of a man's hand, in the angle of the wall, a group was gathered which weighed a pound and a half. At first the mushroom appears as a tiny white knob, close to the ground ; it quickly grows, the cap frequently being expanded in the morning and the decay complete by night, out of doors ; the little white knob expands until the under side gradually opens, permitting the fringe-like gills to appear ; as the cap breaks away from the stem, it leaves the rough ring where it joined the stem, and. this gradually dries up. The gills are of a delicate pink, a sort of salmon-color ; as the mushroom grows, the color of the gills deepens gradually through the shades of brown, and finally, when the mushroom is a day old, becomes quite black, and, as gradually, the substance of the mushroom loses its first crisp, fleshy consistence, and becomes withered and fibrous ; under favorable conditions of quick, dry, artificial heat, it slowly dries, ordinarily it decays. The flavor of the meadow mushroom is H U Meadow Mushroom with Gills and Spores. sweet and nutty, while that of poisonous varieties is sharp and acrid. The poisonous mushrooms have not the characteristic pink gills of the harmless sort. A favorite popular test is to cook with the mushrooms a white onion peeled, or a silver spoon, and, if either turns black, to avoid the mushrooms as poisonous. The accompanying picture shows the meadow mushroom, or pink-gill, in its stages of growth from the tiny seed or spore, which is concealed among the gills, to the full-grown cap. FRESH MUSHROOMS BROILED.