FUNGI, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE, By Dr. COOKE, WHO, after some personal and local allusions and remarks, went on to draw comparisons between the position of the study of mycology twenty-five years ago and at the present day:-At that time, say 1865, books on this subject for the use of students were few and inefficient. The Handbook of British Fungi, did not make its appearance until six years later. This was a sort of "middle ages" for mycology. Those who pursued it were persecuted, and pestered with the inquiry of "What good is it?" "Will it put money in your purse?" The only possible answer was, that it enabled a person to distinguish good from bad, as esculents, and that as a means of acquiring knowledge it would ultimately secure its own reward, in addition to the pleasure it gave to all lovers of nature to explore her mysteries, without regard to whether it was profitable or not. The first explicit knowledge of the modes of reproduction, and the life history of the Peronosporeæ, those destructive parasites of field and garden plants, was not expounded until 1863. It was some time after this that the result of the investigations was even known, much less appreciated in this country. The same may be said of the Uredines. It was but a faint and obscure knowledge that we had of the resting nature of the Teleutospores in Puccinia and Uromyces, and the promycelial spores were scarcely taken into account as important elements in the diffusion of these fungi. If we revert to the current knowledge of the processes of fermentation, we shall discover that it was extremely meagre, for Pasteur did not commence his researches until 1857, and it was slow progress which his views on yeast fungi made at the commencement; and even Tulsane's splendid work on the Pyrenomycetes was not completed until the year 1865, so that we may regard that date as the very commencement of a new era in the study of fungi. Certainly it was not suspected, at that time, that those minute bodies called "microbes " were performing such an important part in epidemic diseases of man, animals, and plants. It was only in 1863 that Pasteur turned his attention in this direction, and although the microbe of "glanders " had been seen in 1868, it was not in any way associated with the disease. About 1873 Pasteur commenced his experiments upon splenic fever, which he continued until at length his experiments in vaccination were proceeded with on such a large scale that in 1882 he had vaccinated 130,000 sheep and 2,000 oxen, with astounding results. In 1878 the bacillus of swine fever was discovered, in 1881 the microbe of the typhoid fever of horses, and in 1884 Pasteur succeeded in inoculation for "rabies." Thus it will be seen that in quadrupeds first, and in humanity afterwards, the germ theory of disease made steady progress. The principal events associated with epidemic diseases in the human subject were the investigations into typhoid fever in 1871 and diphtheria in 1873. These were followed by researches into marsh fever, or malarial fevers in 1879, measles in 1880 and pneumonia in 1882. All the rest is matter of modern history, such as the comma bacillus of cholera in 1883, and Dr. Koch's more recent announcements as to tuberculosis. We do not pretend to claim for all these the same amount of unequivocal success. A fungus hunter is not perhaps a competent judge in diseases which have baffled the wisest and shrewdest of professional men, but we can claim to have admitted an immense amount of light into the darkest corners of medical practice, and to have diverted investigation into a new and apparently the most feasible and important channel. It is not fashionable now, in the face of such success, to sneer at the mycologist as a useless member of society, or to enquire concerning his hobby, "of what use is it?" This brings us from the study of fungi in the past to inquire of its position in the present, and this can be summed up in a few words, as an unexampled success. It has been successful in moulding sanitary operations upon a scientific basis. It has been successful in checking some of the most fearful destroyers of human and animal life, such as typhoid fever, rabies, and anthrax. It has been successful in extending widely the radius of human inquiry and human knowledge. It has been successful, through a cognizance of their life history, to simplify and render more effectual the labour of the cultivator in combating the diseases of useful plants. It has been successful in some countries in the establishment of experimental stations, of departments of agriculture with a scientific staff, and it is now creating a public opinion in favour of systematic and scientific treatment in opposition to the old "rule of thumb." Finally, what is its future? This must depend upon a variety of circumstances, but most of all upon the acquisition of knowledge, upon the wide diffusion of knowledge, and that is the only power upon which we can rely with confidence. When our County Councils awake to the necessity of diffusing through the country, especially amongst the rural population, scientific information on the diseases of animals and plants, and the best modes of encountering them, we may hope for further success. The signs of the times indicate a very close analogy between the diseases of animal and vegetable organisms. The inferences are strongly in favour of the hypothesis that many of the obscure diseases of plants have in microbes an efficient cause. Researches into a vine disease in California, a melon disease in some parts of the United States, and the very prevalent "peach yellows" almost establish the fact that microbes are present in large numbers, and are, hypothetically, the cause of the disease. Average humanity is very apt to appreciate an appeal to the pocket, and this is a prominent element in any calculation of future success. It has been demonstrated already that increased knowledge of ferments and fermentation, mainly due to the researches of De Bary and Pasteur, have had a most important result in brewing operations, and some Englishmen love a "drop of good beer." Undoubtedly the successes of Pasteur's method of dealing with anthrax are converting cattle growers, because of the lives that are saved. The application of fungicides to infected plants is no longer regarded as a fanatical dream. Hence, it is a reasonable inference that the future of mycology is assured, and that the quarter of a century to come, if only as prolific as the quarter of a century which is past, will render obsolete the old query-" What good is it?" The following report of the Fungus Foray is from the pen of Dr. Cooke, and appeared in the Gardener's Chronicle, October 22nd, 1892 : THE FUNGUS FORAYS, 1892. IN bygone days the reports of Fungus Forays were long and enthusiastic, not wholly lacking in adventure, nor wanting in interest. Of late years, the record has been written under a feeling of depression and disappointment. Those of us who remember the excursions of twenty years, or even of ten years ago, cannot fail to recognise in the Field Days of the past three or four years only the ghosts and shadows of the "long ago." It is a question of fact, and not of feeling, that an immense change has taken place. First and foremost is the great dearth of the larger fungi, those of the Mushroom kind, everywhere. To whatever causes we may attribute this, the fact still remains, that woods which in the days of our remembrance, literally swarmed with toadstools, are now comparatively bare. Then it was impossible to carry away in our baskets one-half of the good things met with, and the baskets were big ones, to adorn the tables for the annual exhibition. Now, it becomes incumbent to secure everything that is met with, good, bad, or indifferent, in order to make up an exhibition at all. Then it was that tables to the length of 150 feet could be closely packed with the spoils of two or three days; but now, a table of 10 or 12 feet in length is all-sufficient. When we are compelled to confess that, in excursions extending over ten days, we only saw one juvenile specimen of the ubiquitous Agaricus melleus, it will be sufficient to astonish the old marauders of 1872 to 1882, and to justify us in our lament for the good old times. The Yorkshire Naturalists' Union held a Fungus Foray in the neighbourhood of Malton on September 13th, 14th, and 15th, in localities to which, under ordinary conditions, no exception could be taken; but, unfortunately, although there was no lack of walking, the results were far from adequate, common species were conspicuously absent, and, in all cases, the number of individuals was remarkably small. It is not unusual, in such cases to meet with one or two individuals of rare species, or at least of species having considerable interest, and such was the case on the present occasion. We were surprised to see that splendid edible Agaric, which has hitherto been confined to about three British localities, Agaricus (Psalliota) elvensis, in Yorkshire, and also some few others which had not previously been recorded for the county, including a large species of the sub-genus Inocybe, allied to Agaricus scaber, which could not be referred to any described species, or, at any rate, only tentatively to a species described by Britzelmayr, and not previously known in Britain. There was considerable local interest in the fungus-hunt, and it was unfortunate that the exhibition could not be made more worthy of the occasion, notwithstanding the praiseworthy efforts of the several local naturalists who, many of them, undertook considerable journeys to be present. In the following week, the Woolhope Field Club held their Annual Meetings at Hereford. Tuesday, September 20th, was devoted to the Whitcliff Woods, near Ludlow, an old hunting-ground of the Club; but on this occasion the persistent downpour of rain throughout the day rendered the gathering of fungi beneath the shelter of umbrellas an unenviable occupation, and entailed subsequent results not quite pleasurable to such as were not impervious. The Thursday's excursion in the woods of Dinmore was favoured with fair weather, and the collection made was much better than in the same locality two years ago. Somewhere about a dozen species, not recorded before for the county of Hereford, will have to be added to the Flora of Herefordshire. One of the most noteworthy additions was Agaricus (Stropharia) Percevalii, only found previously near Morpeth. At the exhibition were to be found an interesting collection of fungi sent by H. Spencer Perceval, Esq., from the last-named locality, and a smaller collection made by T. Howse, Esq., in Surrey, amongst the latter being Agaricus (Tricholoma) circumtectus, for which only one locality had previously been known. In neither of the above cases of Fungus Forays held this year could sufficient edible fungi be collected to furnish the table with a dish, except perhaps of the Horse Mushroom (Agaricus arvensis), of which about six specimens were found. With such a record we, who remember better days, are apt to sigh for a return of "the good old times." M. C. COOKE. Agaricus (Tricholoma) panæolus. Fr. Dinmore. Whitcliff. muticus. Fr. Dinmore. (Hebeloma) nudipes. Fr. Dinmore. (Stropharia) Percevalii. B. & Br. Whitcliff. Cortinarius (Telamonia) brunneus. Fr. Whitcliff. psammocephalus. Bull. Whitcliff. Dinmore. (Dermocybe) albocyaneus. Fr. Whitcliff. Lactarius subumbonatus. Lind. Dinmore. Russula virescens. Fr. Whitcliff. xerampelina. Fr. Whitcliff. Boletus candicans. Fr. Whitcliff? Paxillus Alexandri. Fr. Whitcliff. On October 15th, Mr. M. J. Ellwood forwarded for inspection a monstrous fungus which had proved so formidable an enemy to Sanitary Reform as to have secretly grown in the dark regions of an iron surface-drain pipe in one of the streets of Leominster, to such an extent as to have completely blocked the pipe, adapting itself to the internal flanges of the pipe more compactly than art of man could execute a mortise and tenon joint. Growing thus, in the absence of light, it may truly be designated a "Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.' It appeared penetrated with fœtid odour of the drain, which, however, passed off in a few days. Dr. Cooke named it Fomes fraxineus, Fr. A species new to any country. |