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PREFACE.

sible. The facts herein presented are the results of my
own practical experience and observation, together
with those obtained by extensive reading, travel and
correspondence.

To Mr. Charles A. Dana, the proprietor of the Dosoris
mushroom cellars and estate, I am greatly indebted for
opportunities to prepare this book. For the past eight
years everything has been unstintedly placed at my
disposal by him to grow mushrooms in every way I
wished, and to experiment to my heart’s content.

To Mr. William Robinson, editor of The Garden,
London, I am especially indebted for many courtesies—
permission to quote from The Garden, ‘‘ Parks and Gar-
dens of Paris,” and his other works, and to illustrate
the chapters in this book on Mushroom-growing in the
London market gardens and the Paris caves, with the
original beautiful plates from his own books.

"he recipes given in the chapter on Cooking Mush-
rooms, except those prepared for this work by Mrs.
Ammersley, although based on the ones given by Mr.
Robinson, have been considerably modified by me and
repeatedly used in my own family.

My thanks are also due to Mr. John F. Barter, of
London, the largest grower of mushrooms in England,
for information given me regarding his system of culti-
vation; to Mr. John G. Gardner, of Jobstown, N. J.,
one of the most noted growers for market in this coun-
try, for facilities allowed me to examine his method of
raising mushrooms; and to Messrs. A. H. Withington,
Samuel Henshaw, George Grant, John Cullen, and other
successful growers for assistance kindly rendered.

WILLIAM FALCONER.
Dosoris, L. I., 1891.

PREFACE

Mushrooms and their extensive and profitable culture
should concern every one. For home consumption they
are a healthful and grateful food, and for market, when
successfully grown, they become a most profitable crop.
We can have in America the best market in the world
for fresh mushrooms; the demand for them is increas-
ing, and the supply has always been inadequate. The
price for them here is more than double that paid in
any other country, and we have no fear of foreign com-
petition, for all attempts, so far, to import fresh mush-
rooms from Europe have been unsuccessfal.

In the most prosperous and progressive of all coun-
tries, with a population of nearly seventy millions of
people alert to every profitable, legitimate business,
mushroom-growing, one of the simplest and most. re-
munerative of industries, is almost unknown. The
market grower already engaged in growing mushrooms
appreciates his situation and zealously guards his meth-
ods of cultivation from the public. This only incites
interest and inquisitiveness, and the people are becoming
alive to the fact that there is money in mushrooms and
an earnest demand has been created for information
about growing them.

The raising of mushrooms is within the reach of
nearly every one. Good materials to work with and
careful attention to all practical details should give good
returns. The industry is one in which women and
children can take part as well as men. It furnishes
indoor employment in winter, and there is very little
hard labor attached to it, while it can be made subsid-
iary to almost any other business, and even a recreation
as well as a source of profit.

In this book the endeavor has been, even at the risk
of repetition, to make the best methods as plain as pos-

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.—THOSE WHO SHOULD GROW MUSHROOMS......... seeee

Market Gardeners—Florists—Private Gardeners—Village Peo-
ple and Suburban Residents—Farmers.

CHAPTER II.—GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS............0+5 aoe

Underground Cellars—In Dwelling House—Mr. Gardner’s Meth-
od—Mr. Denton’s Method—Mr. Van Siclen’s Methcd—The Do-
soris Mushroom Cellar.

CHAPTER III.—GROWING MUSHROOMS IN MUSHROOM HOUSES.....

Building the House—Mrs. Osborne’s Mushroom House—Inte-
rior Arrangement of Mushroom Houses—Mr. Samuel Hen-
shaw’s Mushroom House.

CHAPTER IV.—GROWING MUSHROOMS IN SHEDS

The Temperature of Interior of the Bed—Shelf Beds—The Use
of the Term Shed.

CHAPTER V.—GROWING MUSHROOMS IN GREENHOUSES.... .......
Cool Greenhouses—On Greenhouse Benches—In Frames in the
Greenhouses—Orchard Houses—Under Greenhouse Benches—
Among Other Plants on Greenhouse Benches—Growing Mush-
rooms in Rose Houses—Drip from the Benches—Ammonia
Arising.

CHAPTER VI.—GROWING MUSHROOMS IN THE FIELDS. ...........-

Mushrooms often appear Spontaneously—Wild Mushrooms—
Mr. Henshaw’s Plan—Brick Spawn in Pastures.

CHAPTER VII.—MANURE FOR MUSHROOM BEDS..........200-eeeeees

Horse Manure —Fresher the Better—Manure of Mules—Cellar
Manure—City Stable Manure—Baled Manure—Cow Manure—
German Peat Moss Stable Manure for Mushroom Beds—Saw-
dust Stable Manure for Mushroom Beds—Tree Leaves—Spent
Hops.

CHAPTER VIII.—PREPARATION OF THE MANURE...........-..00005

Preparing out of Doors—Warm Sunshine—Fire-fang—Guard
Against Over Moistening—The Proper Condition of the Manure
—Loam and Manure Mixed.

CHAPTER IX.—MAKING UP THE MUSHROOM BEDB........-..-.+00006

The Thickness of the Beds—Shape of the Beds—Bottom-heat
Thermometers—The Proper Temperature—Too High Tempera-
ture—Keep the House at 55°.

15

39

41

57

14

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X.—MUSHROOM SPAWN.....--+---+ce ee eeeeee eens jeaaa nein 78
What is Mushroom Spawn?—The Mushroom Plant—Spawn Ob-
tained at any Sced Store—Imported from Europe—The Great
Mushroom-growing Center of the Country—English Spawn—
Mill-track Mushroom Spawn—Flake or French Spawn—Virgin
Spawn—How to Keep Spawn—New Versus Old Spawn—How
to Distinguish Good from Poor Spawn—American-made Spawn
~How to make Brick Spawn—How to make French (flake)
Spawn—Making French Virgin Spawn—A Second Method—
Third Method—Relative Merits of Flake and Brick Spawn.

CHAPTER XI.—SPAWNING THE BEDS ....--.-+-++--0eeceee cree: sasten oe 96
Preparing the Spawn—Steeped Spawn—Flake Spawn—Trans-
planting Working Spawn.

CHAPTER XII.—LOAM FOR THE BEDS.......0.-0ee sees eceeeeeeceeseees 100

Cavities in the Surface of Beds—The Best Kind of TLadni=Gom
mon Loam—Ordinary Garden Soil—Roadside Dirt—Sandy Soil
—Peat Soil or Swamp Muck—Heavy, Clayey Loam—Loam Con-
taining Old Manure.

CHAPTER XIII.—EARTHING OVER THE BED6........ Retina es ee ee 103

Loam is Indispensable—The Rest Soil—Proper Time to Case
Beds—Inserting the Spawn—Sifting the Soil—Firming the Soil
—Green Sods.

CHAPTER XIV.—TOPDRESSING WITH LOAM......0-.00-eseecereeeeceee 107

Beds that are in Full Bearing—Filling up the Holes—Firm-
ing the Dressing to the Bed—Beds in which Black Spot has
Appeared.

CHAPTER XV.—THE PROPER TEMPERATURE......... arr .)
Covering the Beds with Hay—A High Temperature—In a Tem-
perature of 50°-—In a Temperature of 55°—Boxing Over the Bed.

CHAPTER XVI.—WATERING MUSHROOM BEDS. ... ....-esseeeeeees 111

Artificially Heated Mushroom Houses—Sprinkling Water over
Mulching—Watering Pots—Manure Water—Preparing Manure
Water—Common Salt—Sprinkling the Floors—Houses Heated
by Smoke Flues—Manure Steam for Moistening the At-
mosphere.

CHAPTER XVII.—GATHERING AND MARKETING MUSHROOMG....... 115

When Mushrooms are Fit to Piek—Picking—The Advantages
of Pulling over Cutting—Pulled Mushrooms—Gathering Field
or Wild Mushrooms—Marketing Mushrooms.

CHAPTER XVUHI.—RE-INVIGORATING OLD BEDB.............0 02000008 120
Worn Out Beds—Spurts of Increased Fertility—A Spent Mush-
room Bed—Living Spawn. :

CHAPTER XIX.—INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES.............--+ satis 122
Maggots— Black Spot—Manure Flies—Slugs—“ Bullet” or
“Shot’’ Holes—Wood Lice—Mites—Mice and Rats—Toads—Fog-
ging Off—Flock—Cleaning the Mushroom Houses.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XX.—GROWING MUSHROOMS IN RIDGES OUT OF Doors
AROUND LONDON........0 0000 cece eeee eee Sarasa cian ceaidiate se ahaiginnenind 136
Ridges in the Open Field—Bed Making—Manure Obtained from
City Stables—The Site for Beds—Planting the Spawn—Drench-
ing Rains—Russia Mats—The First Beds—The First Cutting—
Watering.

CHAPTER XXI.—MUSHROOM GROWING IN THE PARIS CAVES....... 143

Caves and Subterranean Passages—The Manure Used—Prepa-
ration of the Manure—Making the Beds—The Spawn—Stratify-
ing the Spawn—Chips and Powder of Stone—Earthing Over
the Beds—Temperature in High-roofed Caves—When the Mush-
rooms are Gathered—Proper Ventilation.

CHAPTER XXII.—COOKING MUSHROOMG.. ....--.. 065 ceeeeee eee renee 150

Baked Mushrooms—Stewed Mushrooms—Soyer’s Breakfast
Mushrooms—Mushrooms 4 la Créme—Curried Mushrooms—
Broiled Mushrooms—Mushroom Soup—Mushroom Stews—Pot-
ted Mushrooms—Gilbert’s Breakfast Mushrooms—Baked Mush-
rooms—Mushrooms a4 la Casse, Tout—Brvuiled Beefsteak and
Mushrooms—To Preserve Mushrooms—Mushroom Powder—
To Dry Mushrooms—Dried Mushrooms—Mushroom Ketchup-
Pickled Mushrooms.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Mushroom Cellar under a Barn, . . . °
Boxed-up Frame with Straw Covering, . .
Cross Section of the Dosoris Mushroom Cellar, .
Ground Plan of the Dosoris Cellar, . . °
Base-burning Water Heater, * .

Vertical Section of Base-burning Water Heater, .
Mushroom House Built Against a North-facing Wall,
Section of Mrs. Osborne’s Mushroom House, .
Ground Plan of Mrs. Osborne’s Mushroom House, .
Interior View of Mr. S. Henshaw’s Mushroom House,
Boxed Mushroom Bed under Greenhouse Bench, .
Mushrooms Grown on Greenhouse Benches, °
Wide Bed with Pathway Above, .

Mushrooms on Greenhouse Benches under Tomatoes,

Mr. Wm. Wilson’s Mushroom Beds, . e .
Mushroom Bed Built Flat upon the Ground, .
Ridged Mushroom Bed, . . . . .

Banked Bed against a Wall, .
Perspective View of the Dosoris Mushroom | Cellar, .

Bale of German Peat Moss, . . .
Brick Spawn, . a <i A . °
Fiake, or French Spawn, . .
Brick Spawn Cut in Pieces for Planting, s °
A Perfect Mushroom, ‘ ° .
Mushrooms Affected with Black Spot, . ° °
A Flock-Diseased Mushroom, . . 5 °
The Covered Ridges, . . . . . .

In the Mushroom Caves of Paris, .
Gathering Mushrooms in the Paris Caves tor Market,

—-—d
on

SSFBSSASKRESHRRRRRBBBN

Mushrooms, How to Grow Them.

CHAPTER I.
THOSE WHO SHOULD GROW MUSHROOMS.

Market Gardeners.—The mushroom is a highly
prized article of food which can be as easily grown as
many other vegetable products of the soil—and with as
much pleasure and profit. Below it is shown, in partic-
ular, that this peculiar plant is singularly well adapted
to the conditions that surround many classes of persons,
and by whom the mushroom might become a standard
crop for home use, the city market, or both. It is
directly in their line of business; is a winter crop, re-
quiring their care when outdoor operations are at a
standstill, and they can most conveniently attend to
growing mushrooms. They have the manure needed
for their other crops, and they may well use it first for
a mushroom crop. After having borne a crop of mush-
rooms it is thoroughly rotted and in good condition for
early spring crops; and for seed beds of tomatoes, let-
tuces, cabbages, cauliflowers, and other vegetables, it is
the best kind of mannre.

Years ago market gardening near New York in winter
was carried on in rather a desultory way, and the supply
of salads and other forced vegetables was limited and
mostly raised in hotbeds and other frames, and prices

9

10 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

ran high. But of recent years our markets in winter
have been so liberally supplied from the Southern States,
that, in order to save themselves, our market gardeners
have been compelled to take up a fresh line in their busi-
ness, and renounce the winter frames in favor of green-
houses, and grow crops which many of them did not
handle before. ‘These greenhouses are mostly long, wide
(eighteen to twenty feet), low, hip-roofed (30°) struct-
ures. In most of them the salad beds are made upon
the floor, and the pathways are sunken a little so as to
give beadroom in walking and working. Others of
these greenhouses are built a little higher, and middle
and side benches are erected within them, as in the case
of florists’ greenhouses, and with the view of growing
salad plants on these benches as florists do carnations,
and mushrooms under the benches. The mushrooms
are protected from sunlight by a covering of light boards,
or hay, or the space under the benches is entirely shut
in, cupboard fashion, with wooden shutters. The tem-
perature is very favorable for mushrooms,—steady and
moderately cool, and easily corrected by the covering-in
of the beds; and the moisture of the atmosphere of a
lettuce house is about right for mushrooms. In such a
house the day temperature may run up. with sunshine,
to 65° or 70° in winter, but an artificial night tempera-
ture of only 45° to 50° is maintained. Under these con-
ditions, with the beds about fifteen inches thick, they
should continue to yield a good crop of short-stemmed,
stout mushrooms for two or three months, possibly
longer.

Besides growing the mushrooms in greenhouses our
market gardeners are very much in earnest in cultivat-
ing them in cellars. Some of these cellars are ordinary
barn cellars. others—large and commodious—have been
built under barns and greenhouses, purposely for the
cultivation of mushrooms. Several of these mushroom

THOSE WHO SHOULD GROW MUSHROOMS. 1]

cellars may be found on Long Island between Jamaica
and Woodhaven.

Florists.—In midwinter the cut flower season is at
its height and the florist endeavors to make all the
money out of his greenhouses that he possibly can;
every available inch of space exposed to the light is
occupied by growing plants, and under the benches
alongside of the pathways dahlias, cannas, caladiums,
and other tubers and bulbs are stored, also ivies, palms,
succulents and the like. In order that the plants may
be more fully exposed to the sunlight, they are grown
on benches raised above the ground so as to bring them
near to the glass; and the greenhouse seems to be full
to overflowing. But right here we have the best kind
of a mushroom house. The space under the benches,
which is nearly useless for other purposes, is admirably
adapted for mushroom beds, and the warmth and moist-
ure of the greenhouse are exceptionally congenial condi-
tions for the cultivation of mushrooms. Florists need
the loam and manure anyway, and these are just as good
for potting purposes—better for young stock—after hav-
img been used in the mushroom beds than they were
before, so that the additional expense in connection with
the crop is the labor in making the beds and the price
of the spawn. Mushrooms are not a bulky crop; they
require no space or care in summer, are easily grown,
handled, and marketed, and there is always a demand
for them at a good price. If the crop turns out well it
is nearly all profit ; if it is a complete failure very little
18 lost, and it must be a bad failure that will not yield
enough to pay for its cost. Why should the florist con-
fine himself to one crop at a time in the greenhouse when
he may equally well have two crops in it at the same
time, and both of them profitable? He can have his
roses on the benches and mushrooms under the benches,
ond neither interferes with the other. Let us take a

12 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

very lowestimate: In a greenhouse a hundred feet long
make a five foot wide mushroom bed under the main
bench ; this will give 500 square feet of bed, and half a
pound to the foot will give 250 pounds of mushrooms,
which, sold at fifty cents a pound net, brings $125. This
amount the florist would not have realized without
growing the mushrooms.

Private Gardeners.—It is a part of their routine
duty, and success in mushroom growing is as satisfactory
to themselves as it is gratifying to their employers.
Fresh mushrooms, like good fruit and handsome flowers,
are a product of the garden that is always acceptable.
One of the principal pleasures in having a large garden
and keeping a gardener consists in being able to give
to others a part of the choicest garden products.

In most pretentious gardens there is a regular mush-
room house, and the growing of mushrooms is an easy
matter; in others there is no such convenience, and the
gardener has to trust to his own ingenuity where and
how he is to grow the mushrooms. But so long as he
has an abundance of fresh manure he can usually find a
place in which to make the beds. In the tool-shed, the
potting-shed, the wood-shed, the stoke-hole, the fruit-
room, the vegetable-cellar, or in some other out-building
he can surely find a corner ; or, handier still, convenient
room under the greenhouse benches, where he can make
some beds. Failing all of these he can start in August
or September and make beds outside, as the London

- market gardeners do.

In fruit-forcing houses, especially early graperies, gar-
deners have a prejudice against growing any other plants
than the grapevines lest red spiders, thrips, or mealy
bugs are introduced with the plants, but in the case of
mushrooms no such grounds are tenable. As the vines
have yielded their fruit by midsummer and ripened their
wood early so as to be ready for starting into growth

THOSE WHO SHOULD GROW MUSHROOMS, 13

again in December or January, the grapery is kept cool
and ventilated in the fall and early winter, but this need
not interfere with the mushroom crop. Box up the
beds or make them in frames inside the grapery; the
warm manure will afford the mushrooms heat enough
until it is time to start the vines, when the increased
temperature and moisture of the house will be in favor
of the mushrooms because of the declining heat in the
manure beds. The mushrooms have no deleterious effect
* whatever upon the vines, nor have the vines upon the
mushrooms.

Village People and Suburban Residents.—Those
who keep horses should, at least, grow mushrooms for
their own family use and, if need be, for market as well.
They are so easily raised, and they take up so little space
that they commend themselves particularly to those who
have only a village or suburban lot, and, in fact, only a
barn. And they are not a crop for which we have
to make a great preparation and need a large quantity
of manure. No matter how small the bed may be, it
will bear mushrooms ; and if we desire we can add to
the bed week after week, as our store of manure in-
creases, and in this way keep up a continuous succession
of mushrooms. A bed may be made in the cow-house
or horse-stable, the carriage-house, barn-cellar, wood-
shed, or house-cellar; or if we can not spare much room
anywhere, make a bed in a big box and move it to where
it will be least in the way. But the best place is, per-
haps, the cellar. An empty stall in a horse-stable is a
capital place, and not only affords room for a full bed
on the floor, but for rack-beds as well.

Farmers.—No one can grow mushrooms betier or
more economically than the farmer. He has already
the cellar-room, th2 fresh manure and the loam at home,
and all he needs is some spawn with which to plant the
beds. Nothing is lost. The manure, after having been

14 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

used in mushroom beds, is not exhausted of its fertility,
but, instead, is well rotted and in a better condition to
apply to the land than it was before being prepared for
the mushroom crop. The farmer will not feel the little
labor that it takes. There is no secret whatever con-
nected with it, and skilled labor is unnecessary to make
it successful. The commonest farm hand can do the
work, which consists of turning the manure once every
day or two for about three weeks, then building it into
a bed and spawning and molding it. Nearly all the
labor for the next ten or twelve weeks consists in main-
taining an even temperature and gathering and market-
ing the crop.

Many women are searching for remunerative and
pleasant employment upon the farm, and what can be
more interesting, pleasant and profitable work for them
than mushroom-growing ? After the farmer makes up
the mushroom bed his wife or daughter can attend to
its management, with scarcely any tax upon her time,
aud without interfering with her other domestic duties.
And it is clean work; there is nothing menial about it.
No lady in the Jand would hesitate to pick the mush-
Tooms in the open fields, how much less, then, should
she hesitate to gather the fresh mushrooms from the
clean beds in her own clean cellar? Mushrooms are a
winter crop; they come when we need them most. The
supply of eggs in the winter season is limited enough,
and pin-money often proportionately short; but with an
insatiable market demand for mushrooms all winter long,
at good prices, no farmer’s wife need care whether the
hens lay eggs at Christmas or not. When mushroom-
growing is intelligently conducted there is more money
in it than in hens, and with less trouble.

CHAPTER II.
GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS.

Underground Cellars.—Mushrooms require a uni-
form moderately low temperature and moist atmosphere,
and will not thrive where draughts, or sudden fluctua-
tions of temperature or moisture prevail. Therefore an
underground cellar is the best of all structures in which
to grow mushrooms. The cellar is everybody’s mush-
room house.

Cellars are under dwellings, barns, and often under
other out-buildings. These cellars are imperative for
domestic purposes, for storing apples, potatoes and
other root crops and perishable produce; and for these
uses we need to make them frost proof and dry. These
cellars are ideal mushroom houses, and any one who has
a good cellar can grow mushrooms in it. In fact, our
market gardeners who are making money out of mush-
rooms find it pays them to excavate and build cellars
expressly for growing mushrooms. Indeed, some of our
market gardeners who have never grown a mushrvom or
seen one grown, but who know well that some of their
neighbors are making money out of this business, in-
stinctively feel that the first step in mushroom-growing
is a cellar. It is almost incredible how secretly the
market growers guard everything in connection with
mushroom-growing from the outside world, and even
from one another ; in fact, in some cases their next-door
neighbors and life-long intimate friends have never been
inside their mushroom cellars.

If a cellar is to be wholly devoted to mushroom-grow-

15

16 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

ing it chould be made as warm as possible with double
windows, and double doors, where the entrance is from
the outside, but if from another building single doors
will suffice. A chimney-like shaft or shafts rising from
the ceiling should be used as ventilators in winter, when
we can not ventilate from doors or windows; indeed,
side ventilation at any time when the beds are in bearing
condition is rather precarious. There should be some
indoor way of getting into the cellar, as by a stairway
from the building above it. Also an easy way of getting
in fresh materials for the beds, and removing the ex-
hausted material. This is, perhaps, best obtained by
having a door that opens to the outside, or a moderately
large one from the building above.

Fic. 1. MUSHROOM CELLAR UNDER A BARN.

The interior arrangement of the cellar is a matter of
choice with the grower, but the simplest way is to have
beds three or four feet wide around the inside of the
walls, and beds six feet wide, with pathways two, or two
and one-half feet wide between them running parallel
along the middle of the cellar. Above these fioor-beds,
shelf-beds in tiers of one, two, or three, according to the

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS. 17

height of the cellar, may be formed, ulways leaving a
space of two and one-half or three feet between the bot-
tom of one bed and the bottom of the next. This is
very necessary, in order to admit of making und tending
the beds and gathering the crop, and emptying the beds
when they are exhausted.

Provision should also be made for the artificial heating
of these cellars, and room given for the heating pipes
wherever they are to run. But wherever fire heat is
used in heating these cellars, if practicable, the furnace
itself should be boxed off, by a thin brick wall, from the
main cellar, and the pipes only introduced. This does
away with the dust and noxious gas, and modifies the
parching heat.

But in a snug, warm cellar, artificial heat is not abso-
lutely’necessary. We can grow capital crops of mush-
rooms in such a cellar without any furnace heat, simply
by using a larger body of material in making the beds,—
enough to maintain a steady warmth for a long time.
But this, observe, is a waste of material, for no more
mushrooms can be grown ina bed two feet thick than
in one a foot thick. In an unheated cellar the mush-
rooms grow large and solid, but they do not come so
quickly nor in such large numbers as in a heated one.
And a little artificial warmth has the effect of dispelling
that cold, raw, damp air peculiar to a pent-up cellar
in winter, and purifies the atmosphere by assisting
ventilation.

Instead of using box beds, some growers spread the
bed all over the floor of the cellar, and leave no pathway
whatever, stepping-boards or raised pathways being
used instead. Of course, in these instances, no shelf
beds are used. Others make ridge beds all over the
cellar floor, as the Parisians do in the caves. The ridges
are two feet wide at bottom, two feet high, aad six or

2

18 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

eight inches wide at top, and there is a foot alley between

them. Here, again, no shelf beds are used.
One of the chief troubles with flat-roofed mushroom

cellars is the drip from the condensed moisture rising
from the beds, and this is more apparent in unheated
than in heated cellars,—the wet gathers upon the ceil-
ing and, having no slope to run off, drips down again.
Oiled paper or calico strung along A wise above the
upper beds protects them perfectly ; whatever falls upon
the passage-ways upon the floor does no harm.

In any other outhouse cellar, as well as in one com-
pletely given over to this use, we can make up beds and
grow good mushrooms. Mr. James Vick told me that at
his seed farm near Rochester he raises many mushrooms
in winter in his potato cellars; and so can any one in
similar places. Mr. John Cullen, of South Bethlehem,
Pa., a very successful cultivator, tells me that his present
mushroom cellar used to be a large underground cistern,
but with a little.fixing, and opening a passage-way to it
from a neighboring cellar, he has converted it into an
excellent cellar for mushrooms, and surely the immense
crops that I have seen in that cave of total darkness jus-
tify his good opinion of it.

In Dwelling House.—The cellar of a dwelling
house is a capital place for mushroom beds, and can be
used in whole or part for this purpose. In the case of
private families who wish to grow a few mushrooms only
for their own use it is not necessary to devote a whole
cellar to it; but partition off a part of it with boards
and make the bes in this. Or make a bed alongside of
the wall anywhere and box it in to protect it from cold
and draughts, and mice and rats. You can have shelves
above it for domestic purposes, ‘just as you would in any
other part of the cellar. Bear in mind that mushrooms
thrive best in an atmospheric temperature of from 50° to
60°, and if you can give them this in your house-cellar

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS. 19

you ought to get plenty of good mushrooms. But if
such a high temperature can not be maintained without
impairing the usefulness of the cellar for other purposes,
box up the beds tightly, and from the heat of the bed
itself, when thus confined, there usually will be warmth
enough for the mushrooms, but if not spread a piece of
old carpet or matting over the boxing.

The beds may be made upon the floor, and flat, or
ridged, or banked against the wall, ten or twelve inches
deep in a warm cellar, and fifteen to twenty inches or
more deep in a cool cellar, and about three feet wide
and any Jength to suit.

FIG. 2, BOXED-UP FRAME WITH STRAW COVERING.

The boxing may consist of any kind of boards for
sides and ends, and be built about six or ten inches
higher than the top of the beds, so as to give the mush-
rooms plenty headroom; the top of the boxing may be a
lid hung on hinges or straps, or otherwise arranged, to
admit of being easily raised or removed at will, and
made of light lumber, say one-half inch thick boards.
In this way, by opening the lid, the mushrooms are
under observation and can be gathered without any
trouble. When the lid is shut they are secure from cold
and vermin. ‘Thus protected the cellars can be venti-
lated without interfering with the welfare of the mush-

20 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THER.

rooms. <A light wooden frame covered with calico or
oiled paper would also make a good top for the boxing,
only it would not be proof against much cold, or rats or
mice. If desirable, in warm cellars, shelf beds could be
built above the floor beds, but in cool, airy cellars this
would not be advisable.

Manure beds in the dwelling-house cellar may seem
highly improper to many people, but in truth, when
Tightly handled, these beds emit no bad odor. The
manure should be prepared away from the house, and
when ready for making into beds it can be spread out
thin, so as to become perfectly cool and free from steam.
When it has lain for two days in this condition it may
be bronght into the cellar and made into beds. Having
been well sweetened by previous preparation, it is now
cool and free from steam, and almost odorless; after a
few days it will warm up a little, and may then be
spawned and earthed over at once. Do not bury the
spawn in the manure, merely set it in the surface of the
manure ; this saves the spawn from being destroyed by
too great a heat, should the bed become unduly wari.
This, if the manure has been well prepared, is not likely
to occur. The coating of loam prevents the escape of
any further steam or odor from the manure.

On the 14th of January last, Mr. W. Robinson, editor
of the London Garden, in writing to me, mentioned the
following very interesting case of growing mushroonis in
the cellar of a dwelling house: ‘‘I went out the other
day to see Mr. Horace Cox, the manager of the Field
newspaper, who lives at Harrow, near the famous school.
His house is heated by a hot-water system called Keith’s,
and the boiler is in a chamber in the house in the base-
ment. The system interested me and I went down to
see the boiler, which is a very simple one worked with
coke refuse. However, I was pleased to see all the floor
of the room not occupied by the boiler covered with

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS. 21

little flat mushroom beds and bearing a very good crop.
Truth to tell, I used to fear growing mushrooms in
dwelling houses might be objectionable in various ways;
but this instance is very interesting, as there is not even
the slightest unpleasant smell in the chamber itself.
The beds are small, scarcely a foot high, and perfectly
odorless ; so that it is quite clear that one may cultivate
mushrooms in one’s house, in such a case as this, with-
out the slightest offence.”

Mr. Gardner’s Method.—Mr. J. G. Gardner, of
Jobstown, N. J., uses an ordinary cellar, such as any
farmer in the country has, and the little that has been
done to it to darken the windows and make them tight,
so as to render them better for mushrooms, any farmer
with a hand-saw, an ax, 2 hammer and a few nails and
some boards can do. Mr. Gardner isa market gardener,
and has not the amount of fresh manure upon his own
place that he needs for mushroom-growing, but he buys
it, common horse manure, in New York, and it is shipped
to him, over seventy miles, by rail. And this pays; and
if it will pay a man to get manure at such a cost for
mushroum-growing, how much more will mushroom-
growing pay the farmer who has the cellar and the
manure as well? Mr. Gardner raises mushrooms, and
lots of them. When I visited him last November, in-
stead of trying to hide anything in their cultivation
from me, he took particular pains to show and explain
to me everything about his way of growing them. And
he assures me that by adopting simple means of prepar-
ing the manure and “fixing” for the crop, and avoiding
all complicated methods, one can get good crops and
make fair profits.

His cellar is sixty feet long, twenty-four feet wide,
and nine feet bigh from floor to ceiling. The floor is
an earthen one, but perfectly dry. It is well supplied
with window ventilators and doors, and in the ceiling in

22 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

the middle of the cellar opens a tall shaft or chimney-
like ventilator that passes straight up through the roof
above. While the beds are being made full ventilation
by doors, windows and shaft is given, but as soon as
there is any sign of the mushrooms appearing all venti-
lators except the shaft in the middle are shut and kept
closed.

The bed occupies the whole surface of the cellar floor
and was all made up in one day. As a pathway, a single
row of boards is laid on the top of the bed, running
lengthwise along the middle of the cellar from the door
to the farther end, and here and there between this nar-
row path and the walls on either side a few pieces of
slate are laid down on the bed to step upon when gath-
ering the mushrooms. Here is the oddest thing about
Mr. Gardner’s mushroom-growing. He does not give
the manure any preparatory treatment for the beds. He
hauls it from the cars to the cellar, at once spreads it
upon the floor and packs it solid into a bed. For exam-
ple, on ove occasion the mannre arrived at Jobstown,
July 8th ; it was hauled home and the bed made up the
same day, and the first mushrooms were gathered from
this bed the second week in September,—just two
months from the time the manure left the New York or
Jersey City stables. The bed was fifteen inches thick.
In making it the manure was first shaken up loosely to
admit of its being more evenly spread than if pitched
out in heavy forkfuls, and it was then tramped down
firmly with the feet. ‘The bed was then marked off into
halves. On one half (No. 1) a layer of a little over
three inches of loam was at once placed over the manure ;
on the other half (No. 2) no loam was used at this time,
but the manure on the surface of the bed—about three
inches deep—was forked over loosely. Twelve days after
having been put in the temperature of the bed No. 2,
three inches deep, was 90°, and then it was spawned.

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS, 23

On the next day the soil from bed No. 1, spawned four
days earlier, was thrown upon bed No. 2, and then part
of the soil that was thrown on No. 1 was thrown back
again on No. 2, so that now a coating of loam an inch
and a half deep covered the whole surface of the bed.
When finished the surface was tamped gently with a
tamper with a face of pine plank sixteen inches long by
twelve inches wide. Mr. Gardner does not believe in
the alleged advantages of a hard-packed surface on the
mushroom bed, but is inclined to favor a moderately
firm one.

He uses the English brick spawn, which is sold by
our seedsmen. He has tried making his own spawn,
but owing to not having proper means for drying it, he
has had rather indifferent success.

Almost all growers insert the pieces of spawn about
two to three inches under the surface of the manure,
one piece at a time, and at regular intervals of nine
inches or thereabouts apart each way—lengthwise and
crosswise. But here, again, Mr. Gardner displays his
individuality. He breaks up the spawn in the usual
way, in pieces one or two inches square. Of course, in
breaking it up there is a good deal of fine particles be-
sides the lumps. With an angular-pointed hoe he draws
drills eighteen inches apart and two and one-half to
three inches deep lengthwise along the bed, and in the
rows he sows the spawn, as if he were sowing peach
stones, or walnuts, or snap beans, and covers it in as if it
were seeds. :

Mr. Gardner regards 57° as the most suitable tempera-
ture for a mushroom house or cellar, and, if possible,
maintains that without the aid of fire-heat. He has hot-
water pipes connected with the contiguous greenhouse
heating arrangement in his cellar, but he never uses
them for heating the mushroom cellar except when
obliged to. By mulching his bed with straw he gets

24 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

along without any fire-heat, but this is very awkward
when gathering the mushrooms.

After the bed has borne a little while it is top-dressed
all over with a half-inch layer of fine soil. Before using,
this soil has been kept in a close place—pit, frame, shed,
or large box—in which there was, at the same time, a
lot of steaming-hot manure, so that it might become
thoroughly charged with mushroom food absorbed from
the steam from the fermenting material.

Should any portion of the bed get very dry, water of a
temperature of 90° is given gently and somewhat spar-
ingly through a fine-spraying waterpot rose, or syringe.
Enough water is never given at any one time to pene-
trate through the casing into the manure below or the
spawn in the manure. But rather than make a practice
of watering the beds, Mr. Gardner finds it is better to
maintain a moist atmosphere, and thus lessen the neces-
sity for watering.

Mr. Gardner firmly believes that the mushrooms de-
rive much nourishment from the ‘‘steam” of fermenting
fresh horse manure, and by using this ‘“‘steam” in our
mushroom houses we can maintain an atmosphere almost
moist enough to be able to dispense with the use of the
syringe, and the mushrooms are fatter and heavier for
it. And he practices what he preaches. In one end of
his mushroom cellar he has a very large, deep, open box,
half filled with steaming fresh horse-droppings, and once
or twice a day he tosses these over with a dung-fork, in
order to raise a “steam,” which it certainly does. It is
also for this purpose that he introduces the loam so soon
when making the beds, so that it may become charged
with food that otherwise would be dissipated in the
atmosphere.

There is a marked difference eee the mushrooms
raised from the French flake spawn and those from the
English brick spawn, but he has never observed any dis-

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS. 25

tinct varieties from the same kind of spawn. Sometimes
a few mushrooms will appear that are somewhat differ-
ently formed from those of the general crop, but this he
regards as the result of cultural conditions rather than
of true varietal differences.

His last year’s bed began bearing early in November,
and continued to bear a good crop until the first of May.
After that time, no matter what the crop may be, the
mushrooms become so infested with maggots as to be
perfectly worthless, and they are cleared out. It is on
account of the large body of manure in the bed, and
the low, genial, and equable temperature of the cellar
that the beds in this house always continue so long in
good cropping condition.

Some years ago the mushrooms were not gathered till
their heads had opened out flat, but nowadays the
marketmen like to get them when they are quite young
and before the skin of the frill between the cup and the
stem has broken apart. A good market is found in
New York, Philadelphia and Boston.

Mr. Denton’s Method.—Mr. W. H. Denton, of
Woodhaven, L. I., is an extensive market gardener about
ten miles from New York. During the summer months
he grows outdoor vegetables for the New York and Brook-
lyn markets, and in winter mushrooms in cellars. He
has no greenhouses. Under his barns he has two large
cellars which he devotes entirely to mushroom-growing
in winter. The cellars are seven and one-half feet high
inside; the beds five feet wide, nine inches deep, two
feet apart, and run parallel to one another the whole
length of the cellar. The beds are three deep, that is,
one bed is made upon the floor, and the other two, rack
or shelf fashion, are made above the floor bed, and two
and one-half feet apart from the bottom of the one bed
to the bottom of the one above it. The shelves alto-
gether are temporary structures built of ordinary rough

26 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.:

scuntling and hemlock boards, and the beds are all one
board deep.

A common iron stove and string of sheet iron smoke
pipes are used for heating the cellars. But he tells me
the parching effect is very visible on the beds, it dries
them up on the surface very much, and he has to
sprinkle them frequently with water to keep them moist
enough. During the late summer and fall months, on
his return trips from the Brooklyn markets, Mr. Denton
hauls home fresh horse manure from the City stables.
All that he can put on a wagon costs him about twenty-
five cents; and this is what he uses for mushrooms. He
preparc3 it in a large open shed just above the cellar, -
and when it is fit for use he adds about one-third of its
bulk of loam. The loam is the ordinary field soil from
his market garden. He tells me he has better success
with beds made up in this way than when manure alone
is used. We all know how very heavily market garden-
ers manure their ‘land, also how vigorously most writers
on mushroom culture denounce the use of manure-fatted
loam in mushroom beds, but here is Mr. Denton, the
most successful grower of mushrooms for market in the
neighborhood of New York, practicing the very thing
that is denounced! While he likes good lively manure
to begin with he is very careful not to use it soon enough
to run any risk of overheating in the beds. The loam in
the manure counteracts this strong heating tendency,
also with the loam mixture the shelf-beds can be built
much more firmly than with plain manure on the springy
boards. When the temperature falls to 90° he spawns
the beds.

He uses both French and brick spawn, but leans with
most favor to the latter, of which in the fall 1889 he used
400 lbs. He markets from 1700 to 2500 lbs. of mush-
rooms a year from these two cellars. Mr. Denton be-
lieves emphatically in cleanliness in the mushroom cel-

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS. 27

lar, and ascribes his best successes to his most thorough
cleaning. Every summer he cleans out his ccllars and
limewashes all over.

Mr. Van Siclen’s Method.—Mr. Abram Van Sic-
len, of Jamaica, L. 1., also grows mushrooms very exten-
sively in underground cellars, whose arrangements do
not differ materially from those of Mr. Denton’s, except
in his manner of heating. He runs an immense grcen-
house vegetable-growing establishment, as well as a sum-
mer truck farm, and uses hot water heating apparatus,
also smoke flues as employed ordinarily in grecnhouses,
especially lettuce houses. ‘The sheet iion pipes, except
in squash houses, he does not hold in much favor.

The Dosoris Mushroom Cellar.—This is a subter-
ranean tunnel or cellar that was excavated and arched
some ten years ago, expressly for the cultivation of mush-

FIG. 3. CROSS-SECTION OF THE DOSORIS MUSHROOM CELLAR.

rooms. It is sitnated in an open, sunny part of the
garden, and its extreme length from outside of end walls
is eighty-three feet: but of this space nine feet at either

28 MUSHROCMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

end are given up to entrance pits and a heating appara-
tus ; and the full length of the mushroom cellar proper
inside the inner walls is sixty-three fect. The walls and
arch are of brick, and the top of the arch is two and
one-half feet below the surface of the soil. Thie tunnel
or arch is seven fect high in the middle and eight feet
wide within, but a raised two-fect-wide pathway along
the middle lessens the height to six and one-half fect.
Between this pathway and the sides of the building there
is only an earthen floor, but it is quite dry, as the cellar
is perfectly drained. Three ventilators sixteen feet
apart had been built in the top of the arch, but this was
a mistake, as the condensation in the cellar in winter
from these ventilators always keeps the place under them
cold and wet and rather unproductive. One tall wooden
chimney-like shaft would have becn a better ventilator
than the three ventilating hules now there, which are
covered over with an iron and glass grating.

At one end of the house and behind the stairs descend-
ing into the pit is the heating apparatus, from which a
four-inch hot-water pipe passes around inside the house

Fic. 4. GROUND PLAN OF THE DOSORIS CELLAR.

near the wall and only four inches above ground. A
three-fect wide hemlock flooring for the bed to rest on

is laid along each side and about four inches above the
pipe, leaving the aperture between the earth floor and

the bottom of the bed along the pathway open for the

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS. 29

escape of the artificial heat. One might think that the
hot water pipe under, and so near the bed, would dry it
up and destroy it, but such is not the case. In a cellar
of this kind very little fire heat is needed to maintain the
required temperature, and I do not know where else the
pipes could be put where they would do the work any
better and be more out of the way.

These beds, for convenience in building them, spawn-
ing them, molding them over, gathering the crop and
watering the beds, and removing the manure after the
beds are exhausted, are built against the wall and with a
rounded face, thus giving a three and one-half feet wide
surface of bed in place of one three feet wide, were it
built flat. This gain in superficial area is not so impor-
tant as it might seem, for the part immediately next to
the edge of the pathway seldom yields very much.
Above these beds a string of shelf beds is arranged
which runs the full length of both sides of the cellar.
From the floor of the under bed to the floor of the top
bed is three feet, and the upper beds are just as wide as
the lower ones. The shelves for the beds are temporary
affairs, put up end taken down every year. ‘The cross-
bars rest in sockets in the wall made by cutting out half
a brick every four feet along the wall, and on upright
strips or feet one and one-fourth by four inches wide, or
two by three inches, set under the inside ends of the
cross-bars and resting on the cement floor close up
against the lower bed. By having this foot end a quar-
ter of an inch higher than the wall end the heavy weight
of the bed is thrown toward the wall. Loose hemlock
boards set close together form the flooring, for there is
no need of nailing any of them except the one next to
the upright face board, which is ten inches wide, and
nailed along the front, by the pathway, to the posts and
shelf board. By tilting the weight to the wall the up-
right board is firm enough to hold its place against any

30 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

pressing out in building the beds. The supporting legs
of the shelves are also nailed to the face board of the
lower bed, and this holds them perfectly solid in place.
The shelf beds are eight inches deep at front, but can
be made of any depth desired against the walls at the
back. The cold wall has no injurious effect upon the
bearing of the bed, and many fine mushrooms grow close
against the walls.

The entrance pits are nine and one-half feet deep from
ground level, three feet eight inches wide, nine feet
long, and are covered over with folding doors on strong
hinges, and descended into by.means of wooden mov-
able stairs. These dimensions are needed at the end
where the heating apparatus is placed, but at the other
end, although it is convenient in bandling the manure, a
space two or three feet less would have answered just as
well. A close door at either end of the mushroom cellar
proper separates it from the end pits. The cellar is
divided in the middle by a partition. This gives, when
it is in full working order, eight beds, each thirty-one
and one-half feet long, or a continuous run of 252 feet
or 756 square feet of surface, and as the beds are re-
newed twice a year this gives 504 running feet of bed,
or 1512 square feet of surface. A common average crop
is three-fifths of a pound of mushrooms to the square
foot of bed, and a good fair average is four-fifths of a
pound. This would give over a thousand pounds of
mushrooms a season from this cellar when it is in full
running capacity. But as the aim is to have a steady
supply of mushrooms from October until May, and not a
flush at any one time and a scarcity at another, only two
beds are made at a time, allowing a month to intervene
between every two.

For the two beds, No. 1, preparing the manure begins
in July, the beds are made up in August, and gathering
of the crop commences in October; work on the two

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS. 31

beds, No. 2, begins in August, the beds are made up in
September, and the mushrooms gathered in November ;
preparing for the two beds, No. 3, begins in September,
the beds are made up in October, gathering commences
in December ; for the two beds, No. 4, work begins in
October, the beds are made up in November, and the
crop is gathered in January; for the two beds, No. 5
(No. 1 renewed), work begins in November, the beds
are made up in December, and the crop is gathered in
February; for the two beds, No. 6 (No. 2 renewed),
work begins in December, the beds are made up in Jan-
uary, and the crop is gathered in March; for the two
beds, No. 7 (No. 3 renewed), work begins in January,
the beds are made up in February, and the crop is gath-
ered in April; for the two beds, No. 8 (No. 4 renewed),
work begins in February, the beds are made up in
March, and the mushrooms gathered in May. After
this time of year the summer heat renders mushroom-
growing uncertain, and the maggots destroy the mush-
rooms. This system allows each bed a bearing period
of two months. After yielding a crop for some seven
to nine weeks the beds are pretty well exhausted and
hardly worth retaining longer. They might drag along
in a desultory way for weeks, but as soon as they stop
yielding a paying crop we clear them out and start
afresh.

And when the mushroom season is closed we lift out
and remove the manure, clean the boards used in shelv-
ing, and give the cellar a thorough cleaning,— whitewash
its walls and paint its woodwork with kerosene to destroy
noxious insects and fungi.

The heating apparatus consists of one of Hitchings’
base-burner boilers with a four-inch hot-water pipe that
passes around inside the cellar, and it deserves special
mention because of its economy, efficiency, and the sat-
isfaction it gives generally. This boiler needs no deep or

32 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

spacious stokehole. Here it is set under the stairway in
a pit four and one-half feet long, by three feet wide, by
eighteen inches deep; it is not in the way, and there is
plenty of room to attend to it. The heater, like a com-
mon parlor stove, has a magazine for the supply of coal.

1

Fic. 5. BASKE-BURNING WATER Fic. 6. VERTICAL SECTION.
HEATER. ~*

It has a double casing with the water space between and
down to the bottom of it, so that when set in a shallow
pit there is no difficulty whatever about the circulation
of the water in the pipes. The hot water passes from
the boiler to an open iron tank placed two feet above it,
as shown in the engraving, and thence down through a
perpendicular pipe till it reaches and enters the hori-
zontal pipes that pass around the cellar and, returning,
enters the boiler again near its base. The boiler and
pipes are filled from this tank, which should always be
kept at least half full of water, and looked into every
day when in use, so that when the water gets lower than
half full it may be filled up again: About 134 running
feet of four-inch pipe are included inside the cellar
(sixty-four feet on each side and six feet across at further
end); this gives 134 square feet of heating surface, or a

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN CELLARS. 33

proportion of about a square foot of heating surface for
every fifteen cubic feet of air space in the cellar. This
proportion is more than ample in the coldest weather, but
beneficial in so far that there is no need to fire hard to
maintain the proper temperature. A three-inch pipe
would have given heat enough, but the heat would not
have been so steady. Both nut and stove coal is used in
this heater, and in the severest winter weather it burns
not more than a common hodful in twenty-four hours.
It is so easily regulated that the temperature of the cel-
lar day or night, or in mild or severe weather, never
varies more than three degrees, namely from 57° to 60°.

In a close underground cellar where the temperature
in midwinter without any artificial heat does not fall
below 40° or 45° it is an easy matter, with such a heater
as this is, to maintain any desired temperature. If the
grates are renewed now and then, the heater should last
in good condition for twenty years. With the ordinary
stove there is danger of fire, of escaping gas and of sud-
den changes of temperature, and the evil influence of a
dry, parching heat—just what mushrooms most dislike
—is ever present. The first cost of a hot water appa-
ratus may be more than that of an old stove and sheet
iron pipes, but where mushrooms are grown extensively,
as a matter of economy, efficiency, and convenience, the
advantages are altogether on the side of the hot water
apparatus. Furthermore, hot water pipes can be ran
where it would be unsafe to put smoke pipes.

CHAPTER IIL
GROWING MUSHROOMS IN MUSHROOM HOUSES.

A mushroom house is a building erected purposely for
mushroom culture. It may be wholly or partly above
ground, and built of wood, brick, or stone, and extend
to any desired dimensions. Buta few general principles
should be borne in mind. Mushrooms in houses are a
winter and not a summer crop, and they are impatient
of sudden changes of temperature and of a hot or arid
atmosphere. Therefore, build the houses where they
will be warm and well-sheltered in winter, so as to get

aA ey

TET H IE oA

Fic. 7. MUSHROOM HOUSE BUILT AGAINST A NORTH-FACING WALL.

the advantage of the natural warmth, and spare the arti-

ficial heat. They should be entered from an adjoining

building, or through a porch on the south side, so as to

guard against cold draughts or blasts in winter when

the door would be opened in going into or coming out
34

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN MUSHROOM HOUSES. 35

of the house. At the same time, do not lose sight of
convenience in handling the manure, either in bringing
it into the house or taking it out, and with this in view
it may be necessary to have a door opening to the out-
side. All outside doors should be double and securely
packed around in winter. Side window ventilators are
not necessary, at the same time they are useful in the
early part of the season and in summer time; they
should be double and tightly packed in winter. The
walls, if made of brick, should be hollow, if of wood,
double; indeed, walls built as if for an ice house are
the very best for a mushroom house, and should be
banked with earth, tree leaves, or strawy manure in
winter, to help keep the interior of the house a little
warmer.

The floor should be perfectly dry; that is, so well
drained that water will not stand upon it, but it is

Fic. 8. SECTION OF Mrs. C. J. OSBORNE’S MUSHROOM HOUSE.

immaterial whether the floor is an ordinary earthen one
or of wood or cement.

The roof should be double and always sloping,—never
flat. The hoar frost that appears in severe weather
inside a single roof is likely to melt as the heat of the

36 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

day increases, and this cold drip falling upon the beds
below is very prejudicial to the mushroom crop. A
double roof saves the beds from this drip, and it also
renders the house warmer, and less fire is needed to main-
tain the requisite temperature. One might think that a
single roof like that of a dwelling house, and then a flat
ceiling under it, would be equivalent to a double sloping
roof, but it is not. ‘he moisture arising from the
interior of the house condenses upon the flat ceiling, and
the water, having no way of running off, drips duwn
upon the beds. With a sloping ceiling or inside roof
the water runs down the ceiling to the walls. A very
pointed example of this may be seen in Mrs. C. J. Osborne’s

Bep

: House
AC ED ]
SSS aS aes EN

AL K
NSS WSS SS

FIG. 9. GROUND PLAN OF MRS. OSBORNE’S MUSHROOM HOUSE.

excellent mushroom house at Mamaroneck, N. Y. It
had been built in the most substantial manner, with a
sloping roof and a flat ceiling under the roof, but so
much annoyance was caused bythe drip falling from it
upon the beds below that her gardener had the flat ceil-
ing removed and a sloping one built instead, and now it
workz splendidly, and a few months ago I saw as fine a

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN MUSHROOM HOUSES. 37

crop of mushrooms in that house as one could wish to
look at.

The interior arrangement of the mushroom house
may resemble that of the mushroom cellar. Beds may
be made alongside of the walls and, if there is room,
also along the middle of the house, and shelves erected
in the same way as in the cellar. But in the case of
cold, thin outside walls, the shelf-beds should not be
built close against them, but instead boxed off about two
inches from the walls, so as to remove the beds from the
chilling touch of the wall in winter. Economy may
suggest the advisability of high mushroom houses, so
that one may be able to build one shelf above another,
until the shelves are two, three, or four deep. But this
isa mistake. The artificial heat required to maintain a
temperature of 55° in midwinter in a house built high
above ground would be too parching and unsteady for
the good of the mushrooms; besides, a second shelf is
inconvenient enough, and when it comes to a third or a
fourth the inconvenience would be too great, and over-
reach any advantage hoped for in economy of space.
An unheated mushroom house must be regarded as a
shed, and treated similarly, as described in the following
chapter.

In large, well appointed, private gardens, a mushroom
house is considered an almost indispensable adjunct to
the glasshouse establishment, and is generally built
against the north-facing wall of a greenhouse. In this
way it gets the benefit of the warm wall, and may be
easily heated by introducing one or two hot-water pipes
from the greenhouse system; besides, in winter the
house may be entered from the glass house or adjacent
shed, and in this way be exempted from the inclement
breath of the frosty air that would be admitted in open-
ing the outside door.

Mr. Samuel Henshaw’s Mushroom House.—Mr.

38 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

Henshaw has raised mushrooms several years at his place
on Staten Island. His mushroom house is nine -feet
wide and sixty feet long. One side is a brick wall and
the other is double boarded. The roof is of tin, in
which there are three sash-
es each two by five feet,
supplying ample light. At
each end is a door giving
convenient access to the
interior, for carrying in
and removing material
without disturbing the
bearing beds. In winter
the roof is covered with a
Fic. 10. INTERIOR VIEW OF MR. Ss. uate il hay, . ae

HENSHAW’s MUSHROOM HousE. Serve an equable tempera-
ture and prevent the moisture from condensing on the
ceiling and falling in drops on the beds. The floor is
of earth, which, when well drained, he thinks preferable
to either brick or lumber. The floor is entirely covered
with beds, no shelves or walks being used. This makes
it necessary to step on the beds, but as no covering is
employed it is always easy to avoid stepping on the clus-
ters of young mushrooms, and so long as they are left
uninjured the bed is seldom, if ever, impaired by
the compacting effect of the treading. In order to main-
tain a necessary winter temperature of 60° a four-inch
hot-water pipe extends the whole length of the house
about two feet from the floor. On the other side of the
brick wall is a greenhouse which, by keeping the wall
warm, helps to keep the mushroom house warm. Mr.
Henshaw divides this house into three equal beds. The
part at the further end of the house is made up in the
fall and comes into bearing in December; the middle
part a month later to come in a month later, and the
near end still a month later, to follow as another succes-

GEOWING MUSHROOMS IN SHEDS. 39

sion. Then, if need be, and he wishes to renew the bed
at the further end of the house, he clears it out and sup-
plies fresh material for the new bed.

CHAPTER IV.
GROWING MUSHROOMS IN SHEDS.

Any one who has a snug, warm shed, may have a good
mushroom house, but it is imperative that the floor
should be dry, and the roof water-tight. Of course a
close shed, as a tool-house or a carriage-house, is better
than an open shed, but even a shed that is open on the
south side, if closely walled on the other sides, can also
be made of good use for mushroom beds. While open
sheds are good enough for beds that yield their crop
before Christmas, they are ill-adapted for midwinter
beds. The temperature of the interior of a mushroom
bed should be about 60° during the bearing period, and
the temperature of the surface of the bed 45° to 50° at
least ; if lower than that the mycelium has a tendency
to rest, and the crop stagnates. Now this temperature
can not be maintained in an open shed, in hard frosty
weather, without more trouble than the crop is worth.
The beds would have to be boxed up and mulched very
heavily. And even in a close, warm shed, protection in
this way would have to be given, but the bed should not
be under the penetrating influence of piercing winds and
draughts. The mushroom beds should therefore be
made in the warmest parts of the warmest sheds.

The beds should be made upon the floor and as much
to one side as possible, so as to be out of the way, and in
form fiat on the ground, or rounded up against the sides
of the shed; in the latter case the house should be well

40 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

banked around on the outside with litter or tree leaves
or earth, so as to exclude frost from the lower part of
the walls, and thereby prevent the manure in the beds
from getting badly chilled. The beds should be made
deeper in a cool shed than in a cellar or warm mush-
room house, so that they may retain their heat for a
long time.

Shelf beds should not be used in unheated sheds, be-
cause of the difficulty in keeping them warm in winter.
As a rule, shelf beds are not made as deep as are those
upon the floor; hence they do not hold their heat so
long. When cold weather sets in it is easy to box up
and cover over the lower beds to keep them warm, but
in the case of shelf beds, that are exposed above and
below, it is more trouble to protect them sufficiently
against cold than they are worth.

Generally speaking, the term shed is applied to un-
heated, simple wooden structures; for instance, the
wood-shed, the tool-shed, a carriage-house, or a hay-
barn. But we often use the name shed to designate
heated buildings, as the potting and packing sheds of
florists. Were it not that these heated sheds are simply
workrooms, and where there is a great deal of going out
and in, and, consequently, draughts and sudden and
frequent fluctuations of temperature, the treatment of
mushroom beds made in them would be the same as
that advised for regular mushroom houses; but as the
circumstances are somewhat different the treatment,
too, should not be the same. A warm potting shed is an
excellent place for mushroom beds. Here they should
be made under the benches and covered up in front with
thick calico, plant-protecting cloth, or light wooden
shutters, to exclude cold currents and sudden atmos-
pheric changes, and guard against the beds drying too
quickly.

CHAPTER V.
GROWING MUSHKOOMS IN GREENHOUSES.

Any one who has a greenhouse can grow mushrooms
in it. And it does not matter what kind of greenhouse
it is, whether a fruit house, a flower house, or a vegeta-
ble house, it is available for mushrooms. One of the
advantages of raising mushrooms in a greenhouse is that
they grow to perfection in parts of the greenhouse that
are nearly worthless for other purposes; for instance,
under the stages, where nothing else grows well, although
rhubarb and asparagus might be forced there, and a
little chicory and dandelion blanched. *

Cool greenhouses, in all cases, are better for mush-
rooms than hothouses. Cool houses are seldom kept at

Fic. 11. BOXED MUSHROOM BED UNDER GREENHOUSE BENCH.

a lower temperature than 45° or 50° in winter, while
hothouses run from 60° to 70° at night, with a rise of
ten to twenty degrees by day, and this is too hot for
mushrooms. It is a very easy matter, by means of cov-

42 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

ering with hay or boxing over and covering the boxing
with hay or matting, to keep a mushroom bed in a cool
house warm and free from marked changes in tempera-
ture; but it is a difficult matter to keep a mushroom
bed in a hothouse cool enough and prevent sudden rises
in temperature.

On Greenhouse Benches.—It sometimes happens
that the beds are formed on the greenhouse benches, and
the mushrooms occupy the same place that might be
assigned to roses or any other planted-out crop. The
beds on the benches are made one board deep, that is,
eight to ten inches of short, fresh manure, and otherwise
as in the case of beds anywhere else. After the beds
are spawned and cased with soil, by covering them over
with a layer of straw litter or hay, sudden drying ovt of
the surface is prevented, and in order to further prevent
this drying it is a good plan to sprinkle some water
over the mulching every day or two, but not enough
to soak through into the bed. About the time the
young mushrooms commence to show themselves, remove
the mulching and replace it with a covering of shutters
raised another board’s height above the bed, or with
strong calico or plant-protecting cloth hung curtain-
fashion over the beds. The accompanying illustration,
Fig. 12, for which I am indebted to Henry A. Dreer, of
Philadelphia, gives an excellent idea of how mushrooms
may be grown and cared for on greenhouse benches.
This illustration, Mr. Dreer writes: ‘‘is made from a
photograph of a crop grown on the greenhouse benches
at the Model Farm, by Mr. McCaffrey, gardener to J. E.
Kingsley, Esq., of the Continental Hotel. . . . No
covering of litter is used, but the requisite shading on
sunny days is secured by the use of cotton cloth stretched
over the top of the bed, as shown in the engraving.”

My principal objection to mushroom beds on green-
house benches is their liability to frequent and marked

43

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN GREENHOUSES.

\Y
y: :

FIG. 12. MUSHROOMS GROWN ON GREENHOUSE BENCHES AT MR. J. E.

KINGSLEY'’S MODEL FARM.

44 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

changes of atmospheric temperature and moisture, and
to drying out. In midwinter they may be all right, but
as spring advances and the sun’s brightness and heat
increase, the susceptibility of the beds to become dry
also increases.

In Frames in the Greenhouses.—Mr. J. G. Gard-
ner has a range of greenhouses some 900 feet long—the
longest unbroken string of glasshouses that I know of—
for the forcing of fruit and vegetables in winter ; grapes,
peaches, nectarines, figs, tomatoes, cucumbers, snap
beans, peas, lettuce. This range is divided into sev-
eral compartments, to accommodate the different varie-
ties of crops, also so that some can be run as succes-
sion houses. In order to make the most of every-
thing, market-gardener-like, he doubles up his crops
wherever possible, and for this end he finds no crop
more amenable and profitable than mushrooms. It

Fic. 13. WIDE BED WITH PATHWAY ABOVE,

matters nothing to him whether the honse is cold or
warm, he can grow mushrooms in it anyway, and in
order to be master of the situation he makes his mush-
room beds in hotbed frames inside the greenhouses. By
attending to ventilating or keeping close, or covering up
or leaving bare, he can properly regulate the temperature

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN GREENHOUSES. 45

of the mushroom bed, no matter how hot or cold the
atmosphere of the greenhouse may be. In the same
way—by shading the panes or unshading them—he gov-
erns the light admitted to the mushrooms.

The greenhouses in which the mushrooms are grown
are orchard houses, that is, glasshouses in which pexch
and nectarine trees are grown and forced. As these
trees fruit and finish their growth early, it is necessary
that they be kept as cool and inactive as possible in the
fall and early winter, and started again into growth in
late winter. In the fall, therefore, the fermenting ma-
terial being confined in frames retains warmth enough
for the proper development of the mushrooms, and as

Fic. 14. MUSHROOMS ON GREENHOUSE BENCHES UNDER TOMATOES.

the winter advances and the heat in the frames begins to
wane it becomes necessary to begin heating the green-
houses in order to start the trees into bloom and
growth, and thus are provided very favorable conditions
for the continued production of the mushroom crop.
The frames used are common hotbed box frames seven

46 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

feet wide and carrying three and one-half feet wide
sashes. A string of them is run along the middle of the
greenhouses, for greenhouse after greenhouse is occupied
by them. They are flat upon the floor, and in the early
part of the season alone in the greenhouses. But as the
winter advances a temporary staging is erected over
these frames, on which spirgas, peas, beans, or other
flowers or vegetables are to be grown. These love the
light and a position near the glass, whereas the mush-
rooms grow perfectly well in the dark quarters of the
frames under the stages. If he did not grow mushrooms
under these stages the room would be unoccupied, hence
unproductive ; but by occupying it with mushrooms he
not only gets peaches and snap beans at once out of the
same greenhouse, but also a crop of mushrooms, often
worth as much as the other two.

In preparing the beds in the frames they were made
up a foot deep, very firm, and with New York stable
manure brought. direct from the cars. There was no
preliminary preparation of the manure. A layer of loam
one and one-half inches deep was then spread over the
surface and forked into the bed of manure one and one-
half inches deep, so as to form an earthy mat three
inches deep. ‘This was then packed solid with the feet,
and a two-inch layer of loose manure added all over. In
about ten days the temperature three inches below the
surface was about 95°, and the beds were then spawned.
In spawning, drills were drawn across the beds about a
foot apart and just deep enough to touch but not pene-
trate the earthy mat before referred to. The broken
spawn was then sown in the drills and covered with a
layer of loam one and one-half to two inches deep, which
was tamped slightly. The sashes were then put on and
tilted up a little to let the moisture escape. By the
time the mushrooms appeared there was very little need
of ventilating, as the condensation of moisture on the

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN GREENHOUSES. 47

glass was scarcely apparent; but ventilation ig easily
guided by the appearance of moisture on the glass, the
more of this the more ventilation should be given. To
begin with, there was no attempt at shading the frames ;
but as soon as the mushrooms began to appear the beds
were shaded, and mostly by the crops of other plants on
the stages above them. These frame beds were made up
last October, and began bearing in December, and on
March 14 Mr. Gardner wrote me: ‘‘The mushrooms in
my frames have done grandly. I cut large basketfuls
to-day of the finest mushrooms I have ever seen, some
of them measuring five inches in diameter before being
fully expanded.”

And further, in submitting the above notes to him
for verification, he adds: ‘‘'There is one vital point we
should impress upon all who grow mushrooms in frames
or under greenhouse benches, namely, that sudden
changes of temperature must be avoided. While light.
in my opinion, is good-for mushrooms, it causes a rise of
temperature, and this we must guard against. In order
to maintain a uniform temperature all glass exposed to
light or heat in any other way should be covered with
some non-conducting material. Rye straw is the best
thing for this purpose that I know of. Indeed, neglect
of this simple matter, in cases where sunlight and heat
from hot-water pipes come in contact with the young
mushrooms or mycelium on the surface of the beds, is
the cause of many failures in growing in frames and
greenhouses.”

Under Greenhouse Benches.—Open empty spaces
under the stages anywhere are good places for mushroom
beds. However, carefully observe a few points, to wit: A
dry floor under the beds is imperative, for a wet floor
soaks and chills the beds, and renders them unhealthy for
the spawn ; but the common earth floor is good enough,
provided water does not stand upon it at any time; if

48 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

it does, the floor to be under the beds can be rendered
dr y by raising it a little higher than the general level, or
using a flooring of old boards. Beds should not be built
close up against hot-water pipes, steam pipes, or smoke
flues, as the heat from these when they are in working
condition will bake the parts of the beds next to them
and render them unproductive, and also crack and spoil
the caps of the mushrooms that come up within a foot
or two of the pipes. But this injury from hot pipes and
flues can be lessened greatly by boxing the pipes, so as
to shut off the heat from the mushroom beds and allow-
ing it full escape upward ; then the beds can be made,
with safety, up to within a foot of the pipes. As a rule,
hot-water pipes are run around under the front benches
of a greenhouse, then it would not be advisable to make
beds under those benches. The middle bench is the one
most commonly free from pipes, hence the one best
adapted for beds. It has more headroom, and therefore
easier working facilities. Steam-heated greenhouses
generally present the best accommodations for mushroom
beds, because the pipes occupy less room under the
benches than do those for hot water, and they are always
kept higher from the ground.

Among Other Plants on Greenhouse Benches.
—It sometimes happens that mushrooms spring up spon-
taneously among the roses, carnations, violets, mignon-
ette, and other crops that are grown “planted out” on
the benches, and this is particularly the case where fresh
soil had just been used, in whole or part, for filling the
bench beds. ‘These mushrooms come from natural
spawn contained in the loam or manure before they were
brought indoors, and which is apt to be true virgin
spawn. ‘The mushrooms are generally of the common
kind, grown from brick spewn, but occasionally a much
larger and heavier sort is produced, and this is the “horse”
mushroom. It is perfectly good to cat, only of coarser
quality than the other.

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN GREENHOUSES. 49

A fair and certain crop can be obtained by planting
pieces of spawn in the beds here and there between the
plants and where they will be least likely to be soaked
with water. In order to further insure the development
of the spawn, holes about the size of a pint cup should
be scooped out here and there over the bed, and filled up
solidly with quite fresh but dry horse droppings, with the
piece of spawn in the middle, and covered over on top
with an inch of loam, so as to leave the whole surface of
the bed level. So small a quantity of dry manure sur-
rounded with cold earth will not heat perceptibly, and
the moisture of the loam about it will soon moisten it,
no matter how dry it may be. The dry, fresh droppings
are the very best material for starting the mycelium
into growth.

Growing Mushrooms in Rose Houses.—George
Savage, the head gardener at Mr. Kimball’s greenhouses,
Rochester, N. Y., grows mushrooms very successfully
under the benches of the rose houses. When he makes
up his earliest mushroom beds in the fall the rose house
is kept cool, and this is an advantage to the mushroom
beds, which get all the warmth they need from the fer-
menting manure; but as November advances, and the
heat in the beds begins to wane the rose houses are
‘<started,” and this artificial warmth comes in good sea-
son to benefit the growing mushrooms. The roses, in
this case, are planted out on benches, hence there is
scarcely any dripping of water from above upon the
mushroom beds below.

Mr. George Grant, of Mamaroneck, N. Y., who grows
mushrooms in the greenhouse, I called to see last Jan-
uary, and was very much pleased with his simple and
successful method. The beds were then in fine bearing,
very full, and the crop was of the best quality. The
beds were made upon the earthen floor of his tomato-
forcing house and under the back bench. The bed was

4

50 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

flat, seven to eight inches deep, with a casing of a ten-
inch-wide hemlock board set on edge at the back, and
another of same size against the front. The bed was
made of horse droppings, six inches deep, and molded
over with fresh loam one and one-half inch deep.
Over the whole, and resting on the edges of the hemlock
boards, was a light covering of other boards, with a
sprinkling of hay on top of them to arrest and shed drip,
and maintain an equable temperature in the bed.

Mr. Abram Van Siclen, of Jamaica, Long Island, is
one of the largest mushruom growers for market in the
country, as well as one of the most extensive growers of
market-garden truck under glass around New York.
He devotes an immense area under his lettuce-house
benches to the cultivation of mushrooms. The beds are
made upon the floor in the usual way, only for conven-
ience’ sake, to admit of plenty of room in making up
the beds and gathering the crop, besides avoiding the
necessity for building higher structures than the ordinary
lettuce greenhouses, the mushroom beds are sunken
about eighteen to twenty-four inches under the level of
the pathways. As the lettuces are planted out upon the
benches there is very little drip from them, hence the
sunken beds are well enough. And the temperature of a
lettuce house is about right for a long-lasting mushroom
bed. Light is excluded by a simple covering of salt hay
laid over the beds, and sometimes by light wooden shut-
ters set up against the aperture between the lettuce
benches and the floor, in this way boxing in the mush-
rooms in total darkness.

Mr. William Wilson, of Astoria, has an immense
greenhouse establishment near New York. In his green-
houses, under both the side and middle benches, he
grows mushrooms, and when I saw them in January
there were about 300 square yards of beds. The beds
were flat, about nine inches thick, built upon the

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN GREENHOUSES. 51

ground, and protected from strong light by having mus-
lin tacked over the openings between the benches and the
beds alongside the pathways. But his crop was suffering
from drip. Mr. Wilson told me he could not begin to

Fic. 15. MR. WM. WILson’s MUSHROOM BEDs.

supply the demand. He says whatever he makes on
mushrooms is mostly clear gain. ‘They occupy space
that otherwise would remain unoccupied, and he needs
the manure and the loam in his florist business, and it is
in better condition for potting after it has been rotted in
the mushroom beds than it was before it was used for
this purpose.

Drip from the Benches.—This must be prevented
from the beds above, else it will soak or chill, and ina
large measure kill the spawn. I have seen many exam-
ples of this evil. The beds would be full of drip holes
all over their surface, and although a good many mush-
rooms here and there about the bed might perfect them-
selves, multitudes only reach the pin-head condition—or
possibly the size of peas—and then fogg off in patches.
It is not one or two little mushrooms in a clump that
fogg off, but where one foggs off all of the little ones in

52 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

that patch go, for it is not a disease of the individual
mushroom, but of the mycelium or mushroom plant that
runs in the bed, and when this is injured or killed all
the little mushrooms arising from this particular patch
of plant are robbed of sustenance and must perish.

In greenhouses where the benches are occupied with
roses, carnations, bouvardias, violets, or lettuces, ‘‘plant-
ed out,” as commercial florists and gardeners generally
grow them, there is very little drip, because while the
plants on these benches are freely watered, the soil is
never soaked enough for the water to drain from it in
dripping streamlets, as is continually the case in green-
houses where potted plants are grown on the stages.
Under these ‘‘ planted out” benclies, if care is exercised,
mushrooms can be grown in open beds; in fact, it is
about the best place and condition for them in a
greenhouse.

With stages occupied by plants in pots provision needs
to be made to ward off the drip from the mushroom beds,
by erecting over, and conveniently high above them,
a light wooden framework, on which rest light wooden
frames covered with oiled paper, oiled muslin, or plant-
protecting cloth. In fact, three light wooden strips run

Fic. 164. MUSHROOM BED BUILT FLAT UPON THE GROUND.

over the bed, as shown in Fig. 12, or three strings of
stout cord or wire run in the same manner will answer
for small beds, and act as a support for the oiled muslin
or plant-protecting cloth. Building paper is sometimes
used for the same purpose. Mr. J. G. Gardner uses

Q

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN GREENHOUSES. 58

ordinary hotbed frames and sashes, as described in a
previous chapter. Light wooden shutters—made of onc-
half inch or five-eighths inch pine—may be used for the
same end, und will last for many years.

The beds under the greenhouse benches may be made
up in the same way as ate beds anywhere else; that is,

Fic. 17. RGED MUSHROOM BED.

flat upon the floor and between two boards set on edge,

as seen in Fig. 16, or in ridges under the high or middle
benches, as in Fig. 17, or in banked beds against the

FIG. 18. BANKED BED AGAINST A WALL.

back wall, as shown in Fig. 18. Generally the flat bed
is the most convenient to make and take care of.

In open, airy greenhouses it is always well to incloce
the mushroom beds in box casings and with sash or shut-

54 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

ter coverings, to prevent draughts and fluctuations of
temperature and atmospheric moisture. This can easily
be done by making the sides a board and a half (fifteen
inches), or two bvards (twenty inches) high, and cover-
ing over with light wooden shutters, sashes, or muslin
or paper-covered light frames. See Fig. 11.

Ammonia Arising.—Ammonia arising from the
manure of the mushroom beds in the greenhouse may be
injuzious to the other inmates of the greenhouse. If
the manure has been well prepared before it was intro-
duced into the greenhouse, the ammonia arising from
it will not, in the least degree, injure any other plants
or flowers that may be in the house; but if the manure
is fresh, hot, and rank, the opposite will be the case.
Beds in greenhouses should always be made up of manure
that has been well prepared beforehand out of doors or
in a shed, and as it is brought into the greenhouse it
should at once be built solidly into the beds. Then
very little steam will arise from the beds; in fact, it will
be imperceptible to sight or smell.

CHAPTER VI.
GROWING MUSHROOMS IN THE FIELDS,

Under suitable conditions we can grow mushrooms
easily and abundantly in the open fields, and the plant-
ing of the spawn’ is all the trouble they will cause us.
During the late summer and fall months mushrooms
often appear spontaneously and in great quantity in our
open pastures, but in their natural condition they are an
uncertain crop, as in one year they may occur in the
greatest abundance, and in the next perhaps none can be
found in the fields in which they had been so numerous

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN THE FIELDS. 5d

the previous year. Why this should be so is not very
clear. The popular opinion is that after a dry summer
mushrooms abound in the fields, but after a wet summer
they are a very scarce crop; and the inference is that
the moisture has killed the spawn in the ground. This
may be true to a certain extent, but how does it happen
—uas it certainly often does—that good spawn planted by
hand in the fields in early summer will produce mush-
rooms toward fall no matter whether the summer has
been wet or dry? At the same time, it is true that a
wet spell immediately succeeding the planting of the
spawn will kill a great deal of it.

As arule, wild mushrooms abound most in rich, old,
well-drained, rolling pasture lands, and avoid dry, sandy,
or wet places, or the neighborhood of trees and bushes.
In attempting to cultivate them in the open fields we
should endeavor to provide similar conditions. Then
the chief requisite is good spawn, for without this we
can not raise mushrooms.

About the middle of June take a sharp spade in the
pasture, make V or T-shaped cuts in the grass sod about
four inches deep and raise one side enough to allow the
insertion of a bit of spawn two to three inches square
under it, so that it shall be about two inches below the
surface, then tamp the sod down. By cutting and
raising the sod in this way, without breaking it off, it
is not as likely to die of drought in summer. In this
way plant as much or little as may be desired and at
distances of three, four, or more feet apart. During the
following August or September the mushrooms should
show themselves, and continue in bearing for several
weeks.

Mr. Henshaw, of Staten Island, who has been very
successful in growing mushrooms in the fields as well as
indoors, writes to me as follows: ‘‘You ask me to give
you my plan of growing mushrooms in the fields during

56 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

the summer. It is very simple. About the end of
June, or as soon as dry weather sets in, we remove the
old beds from our mushroom house, and if there should
be any live spawn in the bottom of our beds we put it in
a wheelbarrow and take it to the field, where we plant it
in the open places, but never under trees. In planting,
we lift a sod and put a shovelful of the manure contain-
ing the spawn in the hole, then replace the sod and beat
it down firm; this we do at distances of twelve feet
apart. If we have no live spawn from our indoor beds
we take the common brick spawn, and put about a
quarter of a brick into each hole, returning and beating
down the sod as already stated. This is all that is done.
If there comes a dry time after the spawn is put in the
pasture we are sure to have a good supply of mushrooms
in the fall.”

A few years ago Carter & Co., seedsmen, London, sent
this to one of the gardening periodicals: ‘The follow-
ing mode of growing mushrooms in meadows by one of
our customers may be interesting to your readers: In
March (May would be soon enough here) he begins to
collect droppings from the stables. These, when enough
have been gathered together, are taken into the meadow,
where holes dug here and there about one foot or eight-
een inches square are filled with them, the soil removed
being scattered over the surrounding grass. When all
the holes have been filled and made solid he then places
two or three pieces of spawn about cne inch square in
each hole, treads all down firmly, replaces the turf and
beats it tightly down. Under this system, in August
and September mushrooms appear without fail in abun-
dance and without any further care. The method is
simple and the result certain. Therefore all who happen
to have a meadow, paddock, or grass field, and are fond
of mushrooms, should try the experiment. . . . In
the case in question fresh holes were spawned every
year.”

CHAPTER VII.
MANURE FOR MUSHROOM BEDS.

In order to grow mushrooms successfully and profitably
a supply of fresh horse manure is needed, and this should
be the very best that is made, either at home or bought
from other stables. The questions of manure and spawn
are the most important that we have to deal with.
Very few make their own spawn, as it is bought and ac-
cepted upon its good looks,—often rather deceptive,—but
the manure business is entirely in our own hands, and
success with it depends absolutely upon ourselves. We
can not reasonably expect good results from poor manure
nor from ill-prepared manure. It is only from the very
best of horse manure prepared in the very best fashion
that we can hope for the very best crops of the best
mushroons.

Horse Manure.—There are various kinds of horse
manure, differing materially in their worth for mush-
room beds. The kind of manure depends upon the con-
dition of the horses, how they are housed, fed, and
bedded, and how the manure is taken care of. But
while the manure of all healthy animals is useful for our
purpose, there still is a great choice in horse manure.
If we are dependent upon our home supply we may use
and make the best of what we have, but if we have to
buy the manure we should be very particular to select
the best kind of manure and accept of no other.

The very best manure is that from strong, healthy,
hard-worked, well-kept animals that are liberally fed
with hard food, as timothy hay and grain, and bedded
with straw. And if the bedding be pretty well wetted

57

58 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

with urine and trampled under the horses’ feet, so much
the better; indeed, this is one reason why manure from
farm and teamsters’ stables is better than that from

Fig. 19. PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE DOSORIS MUSHROOM CELLAR.

stylish establishments, where everything is kept so scru-
pulously dry and clean.

The fresher the manure is the better, still manure
that is not perfectly fresh may also be quite good.

MANURE FOR MUSHROOM BEDS, 59

Stable manure may accumulate in a cellar for a couple
of months, and still be first rate. After our hotbed sea-
son is over I stack our stable manure high in the yard,
and from June until August, as the manure is taken
away from the stable each day, it is piled on the top of
this stack. My object is to keep it so dry that it can
neither heat nor rot. In August the stack is broken
down and the best manure shaken out to one side for
mushrooms, and the long straw aud rotted parts thrown
to the other side. This short manure, when moistened
with water and thrown into a heap, exposed to the sun
for a day or two, will heat up briskly. The beds illus-
trated in Fig. 19 were made from manure prepared in
this way in August.

In the case of quite fresh manure, let it accumulate
for a few days, or a fortnight, even, until there is enough
of it to make up a bed, and then prepare it. Be very
particular to prevent, from the first, its heating violently
or “burning” while accumulating in the pile. Beds
made from very fresh manure respond quickly and gen-
erously. The crop comes in heavily to begin with, and
continues bearing largely while it lasts, but its duration
is usually shorter than in the case of a bed made up of
less fresh manure. But altogether it yields a better and
heavier crop than a bed that comes in more gradually
and lasts longer, and the mushrooms are of the finest
quality. ;

Some growers use the droppings only, and reject all
of the strawy part, or as much of it as they can conven-
iently shake out. This gives them an excellent manure
and perhaps the very best for use on a small scale or in
small beds. When mushrooms are to be grown in boxes,
narrow troughs, half barrels, and other confined quar-
ters, it is well to concentrate the manure as much as
possible—use all the droppings and as little straw as you
can. But droppings alone for large beds would take too

60 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

much manure and cost too much, and they would not be
any better than with a rougher manure.

Always preserve the wet, strawy part of the manure,
along with the droppings, and mix and ferment them
together, and in this way not only add largely to the
bulk of the pile, but secure the benefits afforded by the
urine without reducing, in any way, the strength or fer-
menting properties of the manure. Shake out all the
rank, dry, strawy part of the manure and lay it aside for
other purposes. This may be of further use as bedding
in the stables, covering the mushroom beds after they
have been made up, or for hotbeds; if well wetted with
stable drainings, or even plain water, it forms a ready
heating material.

Many a time when we have been short of home-made
manure I have bought some loads here and there from
different stables in the village, and mixed all together
and made it into beds with excellent results. Sometimes
when the manure under preparation had been rather old
and cool, I have added a fifth or tenth part of fresh
droppings to it, with very quickening effect in heating
and apparent benefit to the crop.

It is generally believed that the manure of entire
horses is better for mushrooms than that of other horses,
but positive evidence in this direction has never come
under my observation. Some practical men assert that
there is no difference. Mr. John G. Gardner, at the
Rancocas Farm, who has had abundant opportunity to
‘test this matter, tells me that he has given it a fair trial
and been unable to find any difference in the quality or
quantity of mushrooms raised from beds made from the
manure of entire horses and those raised from beds made
from the manure of other equally as well fed animals.
But the Parisian growers insist that there is a difference
in favor of entire horses, especially in the case of hard-
worked animals such as are engaged in heavy carting.

MANURE FOR MUSHROOM BEDS. 61

Manure of horses that are largely fed with carrots is
emphatically condemned by most writers on the cultiva-
tion of mushrooms; indeed, it is one of the points in
every book on mushrooms which I have read. Let us
look at a few practical facts: There are at Dosoris two
shelf beds in one cellar; each is thirty feet long, three
feet wide, and nine inches deep, and both are bearing a
very thick crop of mushrooms. The material in these
beds consists of horse manure three parts and chopped
sod loam one part, which had been mixed and fermented
together from the first preparation. The manure was
saved from the stables on the place in November, ’88, the
materials prepared in December, the beds built Dec. 17,
spawned Dec. 24, molded over Dec. 31, and first mush-
rooms gathered Feb. 7, 1889. These beds bore well
until the middle of April. The mushrooms did not
average as large as they did on the deeper beds upon the
floor of the cellar, but they ran about three-fourths to
one ounce apiece, and a good many were more than this.
It is most always the case, however, that the crop on
thin shelf beds averages less than it does on thick floor
beds, and especially is this noticeable after the first fush
of the crop has been gathered, no matter what kind of
fermenting material had been used. At the time when
the manure used for these beds was being saved at the
stable the horses were only very lightly worked, and to
each horse was fed, in addition to hay and some oats and
bran, about a third of a bushel of carrots aday. And
this is the manure used for the late mushroom beds,
and yet good crops and good mushrooms are produced.
This is not only the experience of one year’s practice but
the regular routine of many.

Perhaps some one would like to ask: Do you con-
sider the manure of carrot-fed horses as good as the
manure of animals to which no carrots or other root
crops had been fed? My answer is—decidedly not.

62 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

While the manure of carrot-fed animals is not the best,
at the same time it is good, and any one having plenty
of it can also have plenty of mushrooms. The complete
denunciation of the manure of carrot-fed horses so em-
phatically stereotyped upon the minds and pens of horti-
cultural writers is not always founded on fact.

Manure of Mules.—This is regarded as being next
in value to that of entire horses, and some French
growers go so far as to say that it is quite as good. Mr.
John G. Gardner tells me of an extraordinary crop of
mushrooms he once had which astonished that veteran,
Samuel Henshaw, and that it was from beds made of
manure from mule stables. Certainly the heaviest crop
of mushrooms I ever did see was at Mr. Wilbur’s place
at South Bethlchem, Pa., four years ago, and the beds
were of clean mule droppings from the coal mines.
Mule manure can be had in quantity at our mule stock
yards, which are in nearly every large city in the Middle
and Southern States. Getting it from the mines costs
more than it is worth, except as a fancy article; the
men will not collect and save it for any reasonable price.

Cellar Manure.—Many stables have cellars under
them into which the manure and urine are dropped at
every day’s cleaning. These cellars are not generally
cleaned out before a good deal of manure has accumu-
lated in them, say a few weeks’, or a few months’, or a
winter’s gathering, and it is commonly pretty well moist-
ened by the urine. If this manure has not become too
dry and “‘fire-fanged” in the cellar it is splendid for
mushrooms. We buy a good deal of it, but are partic-
ular to reject the very dry and white-burned parts.
Sometimes the manure from the cow-stables, as well as
from the horse-stables, is dropped together into the cel-
lar; then I would give less for the manure, especially if
the cow manure predominated, because in the working
it keeps too cold and wet and pasty; but if there is not

MANURE FOR MUSHKOOM BEDS. 65

cow manure enough to give the mass a pasty character
it will make capital mushroom beds. Pigs often have
the run of the manure-cellar, as is generally the case in
farmyards. I would not use any part of this mixed pig
manure. Mycelium evades hog manure; besides it is
impure and malodorous, and a propagating bed for nox-
ious insect vermin. It matters very little what kind of
bedding is used, in the case of cellar manure, but I
would not buy it if sawdust or salt hay had been used as
bedding. Neither of these materials, in limited quan-
tity, is deleterious to the mushrooms; at the same time,
they are far less desirable than straw, field hay, German
peat moss, or corn stalks, and there are risks enough in
mushroom-growing without courting any that we can as
well avoid.

City Stable Manure.—Around New York this can
always be had in any quantity at a reasonable rate, and
it is first-rate manure for mushroom beds. Market gar-
deners haul in a load-of vegetables to market and bring
back a load of manure; others may buy and haul home
manure in the same way, or make arrangements with a
teamster to do it for them. But the whole matter of
city manure is now so deftly handled by agents, who
make a special business of it, that we can get any quan-
tity of manure, from a 500 lb bale to an unlimited num-
ber of loads, and of most any quality, delivered near or
far, inland or coastwise, at a fairly moderate price. It
is the city stable manure that nearly all our large mar-
ket growers use for their mushroom beds. When they
get it at the stables and cart it home themselves they
know what they are handling, and should take only fresh
horse dung. In ordering it of an agent be particular to
arrange for the freshest and cleanest, pure horse manure.
They will get it for you. We get several hundreds of
loads of this selected manure from them every year for
hotbeds, and find it excellent. We also get 1000 to 2000

64 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

loads of the common New York stable manure a year
for our general outdoor crops, and it also is capital
manure in its way, but not so good as the selected
manure for mushrooms. It is mixed a little and smells
very rank, and in mushroom beds usually produces a
good deal of spurious fungi. Most all of our largest
mushroom growers, Van Siclen of Jamaica, Denton of
Woodhaven, Connard of Hoboken, and others, live within
easy hauling distance of the city, and are able to select
and get the very choicest manure at a very cheap rate.

Baled Manure.—Within a year or two a good deal
of our city hovse manure has been put up in bales and
thus shipped and sold. Each bale contains from 350 to
nearly 500 lbs, and is made up, pressed and tied in about
the same way as baled hay. The principal advantages
of the bales are these: Only the cleanest horse manure
is put up in this way ; cow manure, offal, spent hops, or
other short or soft manures are not included in the bales,
nor, on account of shipping considerations, are malodor-
ous manures of any sort permitted in them. The rail-
roads allow baled manure to be put off on their platforms,
and closer to their stations than they would allow loose
manure; and it often happens that an agent will send a
carload to a railroad station and dump it off there so
that the people around who have only small garden lots
can have an opportunity of buying one or more bales,
just as they need it, and without, as is generally the
case, having to buy a whole load when they need only
half a load. These bales are quite a boon to people who
would like to have a small bed of mushrooms in their
cellar and who have no other manure. Bring home one
or more bales, open them, spread out the manure a little,
and when it heats turn it a few.times, and it will soon
be ready for use. Or if you do not wish to litter up the
place, roll the bales into the cellar, shed, or wherever
else you wish to make use of them, and mix about one-

MANURE FOR MUSHROOM BEDS. 65

fourth of their bulk of loam with the manure and make
up the bed at once.

The Board of Health of New York city is very em-
phatic in its endeavors to rid the city of any accumula-
tion of manure and, a year ago, had under consideration
a plan to compel the manure agents, for sanitary reasons,
to bale the stable manure. And perhaps this is the rea-
son why it is so easily procured, to wit: A New York
gentleman, desirous of engaging in the mushroom-grow-
ing business, writes me: ‘I get my manure from the
city in bales. All it costs me is the freight to my place
at White Plains.” Lucky gentleman! With any
amount of the best kind of stable manure gratis, no
wonder he wishes to embark in the mushroom ship.

Cow Manure.—This is sometimes used with horse
manure in forming the materials for a mushroom bed,
and several European writers are emphatic in advocating
its use. But I have tried it time and time again, and in
various ways, and am satisfied that it has no advantage
whatever over plain horse manure, if, indeed, it is as
good. It is not used by the market growers in this
country.

The best kind of cow manure is said to be the dry
chips gathered from the open pastures ; these are brought
home, chopped up fine and mixed with horse manure.
The time and expense incurred in collecting and chop-
ping these “‘chips” completely overreach any advantages
that might be derived from them, no matter how desira-
ble they may be. The next best kind of cow manure is
that of stall-fed cattle, to which dry food only, as hay
and grain, is fed. This is seldom obtainable except in
winter, and is then availabie for spring beds only. This
I have used freely. One-third of it to two-thirds of dry
horse manure works up very well, heats moderately,
retains its warmth a long time, also its moisture without
any tendency to pastiness ; the mycelium travels through

5

66 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

it beautifully, and it bears fine mushrooms. Still, it 1s
no better than plain horse manure. The poorest kind
of cow manure is the fresh manure of cattle fed with
green grass, ensilage, and root crops; indeed, such ma-
nure can not be used alone; it needs to be freely mixed
with some absorbent, as dry lcam, German moss, dry
horse droppings, and the like, and even then I have
utterly failed to perceive its advantages; it is a dirty
mass to work, and quite cold.

In the manufacture of spawn, however, cow mantre is
a requisite ingredient, and here again the manure of dry
fed animals is better than that of those fed with green
and other soft food. But my chief objection to the use
of cow manure in the mushroom beds is that it is a
favorite breeding and feeding place for hosts of perni-
cious bugs and grubs and earth worms,—creatures that
we had better repel.from, rather than encourage in, our
mushroom beds.

German Peat Moss Stable Manure for Mush-
room Beds.—Although I have not
yet had an opportunity of trying
this material for mushroom beds,
Mr. Gardner, of Jobstown, has great
faith in it; so, too, has that prince
of English mushroom growers, Rich-
ard Gilbert, of Burghley, who re-
lates his success with it in growing wre. 2. BALE OF GER-
mushrooms in the English garden MAN PEAT Moss.
papers. This peat moss is a comparatively new thing in
this country, and is used in place of straw for bedding
horses. It is a great absorbent and soaks up much of
the urine that, were straw used instead, would be likely
to pass off into the drains. To this is ascribed its great
virtue in mushroom culture. It should be mixed with
loam when used for mushroom beds.

Sawdust Stable Manure for Mushroom Beds.—
This is the manure obtained from stables where sawdust

MANURE FOR MUSHROOM BEDS. 67

has been used for bedding for the horses. It is a good
absorbent and retains considerable of the stable wettings.
Such manure fer:nents well, makes up nicely into beds,
the mycelium runs well in it, and good mushrooms are
produced from it. But if I could get any other fairly
good manure I wouldn’t use it. I remember seeing it at
Mr. Henshaw’s place some years ago. He had bought a
quantity of fresh stable manure from the Brighton coal
yards, where sawdust had been used for bedding for the
horses, and this he used for his mushroom beds. I went
back again in a few months to see the bed in bearing,
but it was not a success. At the same time, some
Enropean growers record great success with sawdust
stable manure. George Bolas, Hopton, Wirkeworth,
England, sent specimens of mushrooms that he grew on
sawdust manure beds to the editor of the Garden, who
pronounced them ‘‘in every way excellent.” Mr. Bolas
says: ‘‘In making up the bed I mixed about one-third
of burnt earth with the sawdust, sand, and droppings.
The mushrooms were longer in coming up than usual,
the bed being in a close shed, without any heat
whatever. They have, however, far exceeded my
expectations.”

Richard Gilbert, of Burghley, also wrote to the Garden,
April 25, 1885: ‘‘There is nothing new in growing
mushrooms in sawdust. I have done it here for years
past; that is to say, after it had done service as a bed
for horses, and got intermixed with their droppings. I
have never been able to detect the least difference in size
or quality between mushrooms grown in sawdust and
those produced in the ordinary way.”

Tree Leaves.—Forest tree leaves are often used for
mushroom beds, sometimes alone, instead of manure, but
more frequently mixed with horse manure to increase
the bulk of the fermenting material. Oak tree leaves
are the best; quick-rotting leaves, like those of the

68 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

chestnut, maple, or linden, are not so good, and those
of coniferous trees are of no use whatever. As the leaves
must be in a condition tv heat readily they should be
fresh ; such are easily secured before winter sets in, but
in spring, after lying out under the winter’s snow and
rain, their ‘‘vitality” is mostly gone. But we can se-
cure a large lot of dry leaves in the fall and pile them
where they will keep dry until required for use. As
needed we can prepare a part of this pile by wetting the
leaves, taking them under cover to a warm south-facing
shed, and otherwise assisting fermentation just as if we
were preparing for a hotbed. While moistening the
leaves with clean water will induce a good fermentation,
wetting them with liquid from the horse-stable urine
tanks will cause a brisk heat, and for mushrooms pro-
duce more genial conditions.

Mushroom beds composed in whole or part of ferment-
ing trec leaves should be much deeper than would be
necessary were horse manure alone used ; for half leaves
and half manure, say fifteen inches deep ; for all leaves,
say twenty to thirty inches deep.

While mushroom spawn will run freely in leaf beds
and we can get good mushrooms from them, my experi-
ence has satisfied me that we do not get as fine crops
from these beds or any modification of them as from
the ordinary stable manure beds. And we can not won-
der much at this, considering that the wild mushroom
is scarcely ever found in the neighborhood of trees or
where leaf mold deposits occur.

Spent Hops.—We can make good use of this in one
way. If we are short of good materials for a mushroom
bed, we can first make up the beds eight or ten inches
deep with fermenting spent hops, and above this lay a
four or five inch layer of horse manure, or this and loam
mixed. The hops will keep up the warmth, and the
manure affords a congenial home for the mushroom

PREPARATION OF THE MANURE. 69

spawn. But we should never use spent hops alone, nor
so near the surface of the beds that the spawn will have
to travel through it.

Spent hops can be had for nothing, and our city brew-
ers even pay a premium to the manure agents to take
the hops away.

CHAPTER VIII.
PREPARATION OF THE MANURE.

Get as good a quality of fresh horse manure as you
can, and in sufficient quantity for the amount of bed or
beds you wish to make. Next get it into suitable con-
dition for making up into beds. This can be done out
of doors or under cover of a shed, but preferably in the
shed. Out of doors the manure is under the drying
influence of sun and wind, and it is also liable to become
over-wetted by rain, but under cover we have full con-
trol of its condition. All the manure for beds between
July and the end of October is prepared out of doors on
adry piece of ground, but what is used after the first
of November, all through the winter, is handled in a
shed open to the south. During the autumn months
we get along very well with it out of doors; after every
turning cover the heap with strawy litter to save it from
the drying influences of sun and wind. Remove this
covering when next turned, and lay light wooden shut-
ters on top of it as a precaution against rain. In the
shed in winter the manure is protected against rain and
snow and we can always work it conveniently ; when the
shed is open to the south—as wagon and wood-sheds
often are—we get the benefit of the warm sunshine in
the daytime in starting fermentation in the manure, but

70 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

in the event of dull, cold weather, cover up the pile
quite snugly with straw and shutters to start the heat in
it. Altogether, a warm, close shed would be better.

It seldom happens that one can get all the manure he
wants at one time; it accumulates by degrees. This is
the case with the market grower who uses many tons,
and hauls it home from the city stables a little at a
time; also with the privafe grower, who uses only a few
bushels or half a cord, and has it accumulate for days or
weeks from his own stable. As the manure accumulates
throw it into a pile, straw and all, but not into such a
big pile that it will heat violently; and particularly
observe that it shall not ‘‘fire-fang” or ‘“‘burn” in the
heap. If it shows any tendency to do this, turn it over
loosely, sprinkle it freely with water, spread it out a
little, and after a few hours, or when it has cooled off
nicely, throw it up into a pile again and tread it firmly
to keep it moist and from heating hastily.

When enough nianure has accumulated for a bed, pre-
pare it in the following way: Turn it over, shaking it
Up loosely and mixing it all well together. ‘Throw aside
the dry, strawy part, also any white ‘‘burnt” manure
that may be in it, and all extraneous matter, as sticks,
stones, old tins, bones, leather straps, rags, scraps of
iron, or such other trash as we usually find in manure
heaps, but do not throw out any of the wet straw; in-
deed, we should aim to retain all the straw that has
been well wetted in the stable. If the manure is too
dry do not hesitate to sprinkle it freely with water, and
it will take a good deal of water to well moisten a heap
of dry manure. Then throw it into a compact oblong
pile about three or four feet high, and tread it down a
little. This is to prevent hasty and violent heating and
“burning,” for firmly packed manure does not heat uo
so readily or whiten so quickly as does a pile loosely
thrown together. Leave it undisturbed until fermenta-

PREPARATION OF THE MANURE. %1

tion has started briskly, which in early fall may be in
two or three days, or in winter in six to ten days, then
turn it over again, shaking it up thoroughly and loosely
and keeping what was outside before inside now, and
what was inside before toward the outside now ; and if
there are any unduly dry parts moisten them as you go
along. ‘Trim up the heap into the same shape as you
had before, and again tread it down firmly. This com-
pacting of tue pile at every turning reduces the number
of required turnings. When hot manure is turned and
thrown loosely into a pile it regains its great heat so
rapidly that it will need turning again within twenty-
four hours, in order to save it from burning, and all
practicul men know that at every turning ammonia is
wasted,—the most potent food of the mushroom. We
should therefore endeavor to get along with as few turn-
ings as possible; at the same time, never allow any part
of the manure to burn, even if we have to turn the heap
every day. These turnings should be continued until
the manure has lost its tendency to heat violently, and
its hot, rank smell is gone,—usually in about three
weeks’ time. If the manure, or any part of it, is too
dry at any turning, the dry part should be sprinkled
with water and kept in the middle of the heap. Plain
water is what is generally used for moistening the ma-
nure, but I sometimes use liquid from the stable tanks,
which not only answers the purpose of wetting the dry
materials, but it also is a powerful stimulant and wel-
come addition to the manure. But the greatest vigilance
should be observed to guard against overmoistening the
manure; far better fail on the side of dryness than on
that of wetness.

If the manure is too wet to begin with it should be
spread out thinly and loosely and exposed to sun and
wind, if practicable, to dry. Drying by exposure in
this way is not as enervating as ‘‘burning” in a hot

92 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

pile, and better have recourse to any method of drying
the manure than use it wet. If, on account of the
weather or lack of convenience for drying, the manure
can not be dried enough, add dry loam, dry sand, dry
half-rotted leaves, dry peat moss, dry chaff, or dry finely
cut hay or straw, and mix together.

The proper condition of the manure, as regards dry-
ness or moistness, can readily be known by handling it.
Take a handful of the manure and squeeze it tight; it
should be unctuous enough to hold together in a lump,
and so dry that you can not squeeze a drop of water
out of it.

Some private gardeners in England lay particular
stress upon collecting the fresh droppings at the stables
every day, and spreading them out upon a shed or barn
floor to dry, and in this way keeping them dry and from
heating until enough has accumulated for a bed, when
the bed is made up entirely of this material, or of part
of this and part. of loam. But market gardeners, the
ones whose bread and butter depend upon the crops
they raise, never practice this method, and that patri-
arch in the business, Richard Gilbert, denounces the
practice unstintedly.

Different growers have different ideas of preparing
manure for mushroom beds, but the aim of all is to get
it into the best possible condition with the least labor
and expense, and to guard against depriving it of any
more ammonia than can be helped. See Mr. Gardner’s
method of preparing manure, p. 22.

Loam and Manure Mixed.—Mnushroom beds are
often formed of loam and manure mixed together, say
one-third or one-fourth part of the whole being loam,
and the other two-thirds or three-fourths manure; if a
larger proportion of loam is used it will render the beds
rather cold unless they are made unusually deep. I am
not prepared to affirm or deny that this mixed material

PREPARATION OF THE MANURE. %3

has any advantages over plain manure; I use it consid-
erably every year and with good results; at the same
time, I get as good crops from the plain manure beds.
But it has many warm friends who are excellent growers.

In preparing this mixed material I use fresh sod loam
well chopp d up, and add it to the manure in this way:
First select the manure and throw it into a heap to fer-
ment, as before explained; then after the first turning
cover the heap with a layer of this loam about three or
four inches thick, enough to arrest the steam; at the
next turning mix this casing of loam with the manure,
and when the heap is squared off add another coating of
loam of the same thickness in the same way as before,
and so on at each turning until the whole mass is fit for
use, and the full complement of loam, say one-fourth the
full bulk, has been added. In this way much of the
ammonia that otherwise would be evaporated from the
manure is arrested and retained.

Some growers, when they first shake out their fresh
manure, add the full complement of loam to it at once
and mix them together. Others, again, Mr. Denton, of
Woodhaven, for instance, prepare the manure in the
ordinary way, and when ready for use add the quota
of loam. I use good sod loam for two reasons, namely,
because it is the very best that can be used for the pur-
pose. and, also, after being used in the mushroom beds
it is a capital material, and in fine condition for use in
potting soft-wooded plants. But the loam commonly
used to mix with the manure is ordinary field soil. If
the loam is ordinarily moist to begin with, and also the
manure, there is very little likelihood of any of the ma-
terial getting too dry during the preparation. And
much less preparation is needed, for the presence of the
loam lessens, considerably, the probability of hasty, vio-
lent fermentation.

Mr. Withington, of South Amboy, N. J., uses rather a
stinted amount of loam in his manure. He writes me:

74 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

‘“We made up our beds this year with a proportion of
loam in the manure, say one part loam to eight parts
manure, but have always used clear manure heretofore,
and I think the beds hold out longer than when only
manure is used.”

CHAPTER IX.
MAKING UP THE MUSHROOM BEDS.

The place in the cellar, shed, house, or elsewhere,
where we intend to grow the mushrooms, should be in
readiness as soon as the manure has been well prepared
and is in proper condition for use. The bed or beds
should be made up at once. The thickness of the beds
depends a good deal upon circumstances, such as the
quality of the manure, —whether it is plain horse manure,
or manure and Joam mixed together,—or whether the
beds are to be made in heated or unheated buildings,
and oun the floor or on shelves. Floor beds are generally
nine to fifteen inches deep; about nine inches in the
case of munure alone, in warm quarters, and ten to four-
teen inches when manure and loam are used. In cool
houses the beds are made a few inches deeper than this
so as to keep up a steady, mild warmth for a long time.
The beds may be made flat, or ridged, or like a rounded
bank against the wall; but the flat form is the common-
est, and the most convenient where shelvcs are also used
in the same building. Shelf beds are generally nine
inches deep; that is, the depth of one board.

In making up the beds, bring in the manure and
shake it up loosely and spread it evenly over the bed,
beating it down firmly with the back of the fork as you
go along, and continue in this way until the desired

MAKING UP THE MUSHROOM BEDS. 75

depth is attained. If it is a floor bed and there is no
impediment, as a shelf overhead, tread the manure down
firmly and evenly; if the manure is fairly dry and in
good condition it will be pretty firm and still springy,
but if it is too moist and poorly prepared treading will
pack it together like wet rotten dung.

Now pierce a hole in the bed and insert a thermometer.
There are “‘ground”’ or “‘bottom-heat” thermometers,
as gardeners call them, for this purpose, but any com-
mon thermometer will do well enough ; and after two or
three days examine this thermometer daily to see what
is the temperature of the manure in the bed. In roomy
or airy structures or where only a small bed has been
made it may, in the meantime, be left in this condition.
But in a tight cellar I find that the warm moisture aris-
ing from the bed condenses in the atmosphere and settles
on the top of the manure, making it perfectly wet. In
order to counteract this, as soon as the bed is made up
I spread some straw or hay over it loosely ; the moisture
settles on the covering and does not reach through to
the manure. Beware of overcovering, as such induces
overheating inside the bed. At spawning time remove
this covering. The bed will then have become so cool
(80° or 90°) that there is very little evaporation from it,
consequently little danger of surface-wetting.

The Proper Temperature.—This, in mushroom
beds, depends upon the materials of which they are com-
posed, their thickness, how they are built, the situation
they are in. and other circumstances. If the manur2
was good and fresh to begin with, carefully preparea
and used as soon as ready, the bed in a few days will
warm up to 125°, or a little more or less, and this is
very good. My best beds have always shown a maxi-
mum heat of between 120° and 125°. Had the manure
been used a few days too soon the heat would rise higher,
perhaps to 135°, but this is too warm; in this oase I

76 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

would fork over the surface of the bed a few inches deep
to let the heat escape, and after a couple of days com-
pact the bed again. Boring holes all over the surface of
the beds with a crowbar is the common way of reducing
a too high temperature, and when the heat has subsided
sufficiently fill up these holes with finely pulverized dry
loam. With loam we can fill them up perfectly, but we
can not do this with manure, and if left open they re-
main as wet sweat holes that are very deleterious to the
spreading spawn. ;

A too high temperature in the beds should be sedu-
lously guarded against, for it wastes the substance of
the manure, dries up the interior of the bed, and the
mushroom crop must necessarily be starved and short.

Provided that the manure is fresh and good and has
been well prepared, if the beds, after being made up, do
not indicate more than 100° or 110° no alarm need be
felt, for excellent crops will likely be produced by these
beds. The thicker the beds are the higher the heat will
probably rise in them. Firmly built beds warm up
more slowly than do loosely built ones, and they keep
their heat longer. If the materials are quite cool when
built solidly into beds they are not apt to become very
warm afterward. But I always like to make up the
beds with moderately warm manure.

It sometimes happens that circumstances may prevent
the making up of the beds just as soon as the manure is
in prime condition, and even after they are made up the
heat does not rise above 75° or 80°. In such a case if
the manure is otherwise in good condition and fresh, it
is well enough and a good crop may be expected. But
if the manure, to begin with,.had been a little stale,
rotten and inert, I certainly would not hesitate to at
once break up the bed, add some fresh horse droppings
to it, mix thoroughly, then make it up again. Or a fair
heat may be started in such a stale bed by sprinkling it

MAKING UP THE MUSHROOM BEDS. var

over rather freely with urine from the barnyard, then
forking the surface over two or three inches deep and
afterward compacting it slightly with the back of the
fork. Spread a layer of hay, straw, or strawy stable
litter a few inches deep over the bed till the heat rises.
If the manure had been moist enough this sprinkling
should not be resorted to, but the fresh droppings
added instead. When it is applied, however, great care
should be taken to prevent overheating; a lessening or
entire removal of the strawy covering, and again firmly
compacting the surface of the bed will reduce the tem-
perature. Some saltpeter, or nitrate of soda, an ounce
to three gallons of liquid, will encourage the spread of
the mycelium after the spawn is inserted; a much
stronger solution of these salts can now be used than
would be safe to apply after the mycelium is running in
the bed.

When loam and manure mixed together comprise the
materials of which the bed is made, the temperature is
not likely to rise so high as when manure alone is used,
but this matters not so long as the materials of which
the bed is composed are sweet and fresh and not over-
moist. But if the materials are cold and stale treat as
recommended for a manure bed, always bearing in mind
that it is better to have a cold bed that is fairly dry than
one that is wet, or, indeed, a warm one that is wet.

Mr. Withington, of South Amboy, has a good word to
say for beds of a low temperature. He writes me:
«‘Our beds kept in good bearing two months, thongh
they have borne in a desultory way a month longer.
Our best bed this season was one that was kept at an
even temperature. The manure never rose above 75°
when made up, aud decreased to about 60° soon after
spawning. Kept the house at 55°.”

CHAPTER X.
MUSHROOM SPAWN.

What is mushroom spawn? Is it a seed or a root?
Do you plant it or sow it, or how do you prepare it ? are
some of the questions asked me now and aguin. To the
general public there seems to be some great mystery sur-
rounding this spawn question ; in fact, it appears to be
the chief enigma connected with mushroom-growing.
Now, the truth is, there is no mystery at all about the
matter. What practical mushroom growers call spawn,
botanists term mycelium.

The spawn is the true mushroom plant and permeates
the ground, manure, or other material in which it may
be growing; and what we know as mushrooms is the
fruit of the mushroom plant. The spawn is represented
by a delicate white mold-like network of whitish threads
which traverse the soil or manure. Under favorable
circumstances it grows and spreads rapidly, and io due
time produces fruit, or mushrooms as we call them.
‘The mushrooms bear myriads of spores which are analo-
gous to seeds, and these spores become diffused in the
atmosphere and fall upon the ground. It is reasonable
to suppose that they are the origin of the spawn which
produces the natural mushrooms in the fields, also the
spawn we find in manure heaps. But we never have
been able to produce spawn artificially from spores, or
in other words, mushrooms have never been grown by
man, so far as I can find any authentic record, from
“seed.” How, then, do we get the spawn? By propa-
gation by division. We take the mushroom plant or

18

MUSHROOM SPAWN. 719

spawn, as we call it, and break it up into pieces, and
plant these pieces separately in a prepared bed of manure
or other material, under conditions favorable for their
growth, and we find that these pieces of spawn develop
into vigorous plants that bear fruit (mushrooms) in
about two months from planting time. When the spawn
has borne its full crop of fruit it dies.

Well, then, if we can not produce spawn from spores,
and the spawn in the beds that have borne mushrooms
has died out, how are we to get the spawn for owe future
crops? is a question that may suggest itself to the inex-
perienced. By securing it when it is in its most vigor-
ous condition, which is before it begins to show signs of
forming mushrooms, and drying it, and keeping it dry
till required for use. But in order to secure the spawn
we need to take and keep with it the manure to which
it adheres or in which it is spreading. In this way it
can be kept in good condition for several years and with-
out its vitality being perceptibly impaired. Keeping it
dry merely suspends its growth; as soon as it is again

“submitted to favorable conditions of moisture and heat
its pristine activity returns.

Mushroom spawn can be obtained at any seed store.
Our seedsmen always keep it in stock, both the brick
(English), and the flake (French) spawn. It is retailed
in quantities of one pound or more, and as the article
is perfectly dry it can be easily sent by mail in small
quantities.

The seedsmen import it from Europe every year along
with their sceds. A prominent Boston seedsman writes
me: ‘We get our supply through the London whole-
sale seedsmen, for the sake of convenience and cheaper
ocean freight, ete. Coming with a shipment of other
goods and on same bill of lading brings the freight
charges down. The low price at which mushroom
spawn is sold in quantity can only be maintained with

80 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

low freight rates, as there is a duty here of 20% on the
article.”

By direct inquiry of the leading importers in different
cities I find that we import about 4500 lbs of French or
flake spawn, and 4000 bushels, or 64,000 lbs of English
or brick spawn, and that fully a half of this whole im-
portation is handled by the seedsmen of New York city.
in New York one firm alone, who make a specialty of
supplying market gardeners, has in one year imported
1500 bushels of brick spawn. But the vicinity of New

Fig. 21. BRICK SPAWN.

York is the great mushroom-growing center of the
country, also the best market for mushrooms in tlhe
country. One gardener at Jamaica, L. J., bought 1000
lbs of brick spawn at one time, and a neighbor of his
bought 400 lbs; this shows what a large quantity of
spawn market gardeners require. And the demand this
year is unprecedented ; some of our leading importers
had sold out their supply before the first of November.
And it is not private growers so much as markci growers

MUSHROOM SPAWN. 81

who are the cause of this; the market men find there is
money in growing mushrooms and they are going into it.

Spawn comes in the form of dry, hard, solid manure
bricks, and also in the form of flakes of half rotted
strawy manure. These bricks and flakes are completely
permeated with the mushroom mycelium.

The brick spawn is commonly known as English
spawn, and what is imported mto this country is made
in England, mostly about London. The bricks made by
the different manufacturers vary a little in size and
weight; in some cases ten bricks go to the bushel, in
others fourteen, and in others sixteen. This last is the
commonest sized brick, and weighs exactly a pound, and
measures about eight and one-half inches: long, five and
one-fourth inches wide, and one and one-fourth inches
thick ; it is what the London spawn makers call a 9x6x2
inch brick, but it shrinks in drying. In retailing brick
spawn in this country it is sold by weight and not by
measure. -

Mill-track mushroom spawn is advertised by some of
our seedsmen, but what they sell under this name is
only the ordinary English brick spawn. One of our
prominent seed firms who advertise it write me: <‘Gen-
uine mill-track spawn used to be the best in England,
but it has been superseded, although European garden-
ers still call for English spawn under the name of ‘ mill-
track.’” The real mill-track spawn is the natural spawn
that has spread through the thoroughly amalgamated
horse droppings in mill-tracks or the cleanings from
mill-tracks. It is usually sold in large, irregular, some-
what soft lumps, and is much esteemed by spawn makers
for impregnating their bricks, but nowadays, that horses
have given place to steam as a motive power in mills, we
have no further supply of mill-track spawn for use in
spawning our mushroom beds. We do not feel this loss,
however, as the spawn now manufactured by our best

6

82 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

makers will produce as good a crop of mushrooms as the
old mill-track natural spawn used to do.

The flake spawn is what is generally known as French
spawn, and is imported into this country from France.
But the manufacture of ‘‘ French” spawn for sale, how-
ever, is not strictly confined to France. It is put up in

Fic. 22. FLAKE OR FRENCH SPAWN.

two ways, namely, nicely packed in thin wooden boxes,
each containing two or three pounds of spawn, and also
loose in bulk when it is sold by weight or measure.
Virgin spawn is what we call natural spawn or wild
spawn; that is, the spawn that occurs naturally in the
fields, in manure piles, or elsewhere, and without any
artificial aid. It is supposed to be produced directly
from the mushroom spores, and is not a new growth of
surviving parts of old spawn that may have lived over in
the ground. It is far more vigorous than ‘‘made”
spawn, and spawn makers always endeavor to get it to
use in spawning the artificial spawn. It is seldom used
for spawning mushroom beds because not easy to obtain.
Now and again we come upon a lot of it in a manure
pile; it looks like a netted mass of white strings travers-
ing the manure. As soon as discovered secure all you
can find, bring it indoors to a loft, shed, or room, and
spread it out to dry; after drying it thoroughly keep it

MUSHROOM SPAWN. 83

dry and preserve and use it as you would French spawn,
for it is the best kind of flake spawn. In using virgin
spawn for spawning beds I have obtained larger and
heavier mushrooms than from ‘‘made” spawn, and the
beds lasted longer in good bearing, but the weight of
the whole crop has not been more than from artificial
spawn.

How to Keep Spawn.—Spawn should be kept ina
dry, airy place, somewhat dark, if convenient, and in a
temperature between 35° and 65°. Wherever things
will ** must,” as in a cellar, cupboard against a wall, or
in a close, damp building, is a very poor place for keep-
ing spawn. If the spawn is perfectly dry and kept in a
dry, airy place, and not in large bulk, and covered, it
will bear a high temperature with apparent impunity,
but whenever dampness, even of the atmosphere, is
coupled with heat, the mycelium begins to grow, and
this, in the storeroom, is ruinous to the spawn. Judg-
ing from our naturai-mushroom crops, the spawn for
which must be alive in the ground in winter, one con-
cludes that frost should not be injurious to the artificial
spawn, still my experience is that hard frost destroys
the vitality of both brick and flake spawn. And this is
one reason why I get our full supply of spawn in the
fall and keep it myself rather than submit it to the
mercy of the seed store.

New Versus: Old Spawn.— How long spawn may
be kept without its vitality becoming impaired is an
unsettled question, but there is no doubt, if properly
kept, it will remain good for several years. But I can
not impress too strongly upon the reader the importance
of using fresh spawn. Do not use any old spawn at any
price; do not accept it gratis and ruin your prospect of
success by using it. It takes three months from the
time when the manure is gathered for the beds until the
mushrooms are harvested. Can you, therefore, afford

8+ MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

to spend this time, and undergo the care and trouble
and expense, and court a failure by using old spawn?
We have risks enough with new spawn, let alone old
spawn. I do not use any more old spawn, but I have
used it often and long enough to be convinced of its
general worthlessness, unless preserved with the greatest
care.

How to Distinguish Good from Poor Spawn.—
This is a very difficult matter, notwithstanding what
people may say to the contrary. If we could positively
tell good from bad spawn, we would never use bad
spawn, and, therefore, with ordinary care, have very
few failures in mushroom-growing; for good spawn is
the root of success in this business. Spawn differs very
much in its appearance ; sometimes the bricks show very
little appearance of the presence of spawn, and still are
perfectly good; and again, we may get bricks that are
pretty well interlaced and clouded with bluish white
mold or fine threads, and this, too, is good. When the
bricks are freely pervaded with pronounced white threads
this is no sign that the spawn is bad. Bricks dried as
hard asa board may be perfectly good ; so, too, may be
those that are comparatively soft. Mushroom spawn
should have a decided smell of mushrooms, and what-
ever cobweb-like mold may be apparent should be of a
fresh bluish white color, and the fine threads clear white.
.Prominent yellowish threads or veins are a sign that the
mycelium had started to grow and been killed. Distinct
white mold patches on the surface of the bricks indicate
the presence of some other fungous parasite on the mush-
room mycelium ; the absence of any mushroom smell in
the spawn indicates its worthlessness and that the myce-
lium is dead. One familiar with mushroom spawn can
tell with considerable certainty ‘‘very living” spawn
and “very dead” spawn, bnt I am far from convinced
that any one can decide unhesitatingly in the case of
middling or weak spawn.

MUSHROOM SPAWN. 835

Mr. S. Henshaw, in Henderson’s Hand-book of Plants,
tells us: ‘*The quality of the spawn may be very easily
detected by the mushroom-like smell, . . . and I
should have no hesitation in picking out good spawn in
the dark.” Sanguine, surely, but I have tried it and
found the test wanting. M. Lachaume says that good
spawn shows ‘‘an abundance of bluish-white filaments
well fitted together, and giving off a strongly marked
odor of mushrooms. All those portions which show
traces of white or yellow mold or have a floury appear-
auce, should be rejected and destroyed.” Mr. Wright
says: ‘‘A brick may be a mass of moldiness, and yet
be quite worthless; and if the mold has a spotted ap-
pearance, as if fine white sand had been dredged on and
throngh the mass, it is certain there is no mushroom-
growing power there. . . . If thick threads pass
through the mass and there are signs of miniature tuber-
cles on them, then the spawn may be regarded as too far
gone. . . . Clusters of white specks on the spawn
denote sterility.”

Mr. A. D. Cowan, of New York, who has the reputa-
tion of being an excellent judge of mushroom spawn,
writes me: ‘‘To correctly judge the quality of brick
spawn by its appearance requires experience in handling
it, and a trained eye which enables one quickly to detect
good from bad, fair to middling. As two lots seldom
come exactly or nearly alike in appearance, it is hardly
possible to give precise rules to follow, excepting the
never-failing requisite which the spawn must possess to
be good, namely, the moldy appearance on the surface,
the more the better, without showing threads. Too
many of these to a given space are a sure indication of
exhausted vitality, arising gencrally from the bricks
being heaped together when in process of manufacture,
before they are sufficiently dried. Healthy bricks are
usually of a dusty brown color, and of light weight.

&6 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

Black colored spawn is to be avoided, as a rule, and
when the black appearance is very prevalent in a cargo
of bricks it is a strong indication that the spawn has
not run its course; and as it is not expected to do so
after it has reached the hands of the retailer it is econ-
omy to cast it aside. Some persons break a brick into
several pieces to see how it looks inside. To the experi-
enced eye this is not necessary, or even to lay hands
upon it, as the outward moldy appearance is the best of
all evidence of its healthy vitality, and this never exists
if the bricks have lost their germinating power, except-
ing, of course, where they have been kept damp, and the
spawn has spent its power, which is detected by the
white threads appearing in great quantity.”
American-made Spawn.—So far as I have been
able to find out by diligent inquiry, mushroom spawn is
not made for sale in this country. But I am informed
that a few growers do save and use their own flake spawn.
Some of our principal growers, Van Siclen, Gardner,
and Henshaw, for instance, in time past attempted to
make their own spawn, but with only partial success,
and now they confine themselves to the imported article.
But this state of affairs can not long continue. The
demand here for fresh mushrooms is so great, the indus-
try of mushroom-growing so important, the price of
imported spawn so high, and the quantity of foreign
spawn imported annually into this country is so large,
that, before long, we hope some one will find it to his
advantage to make a specialty of growing mushroom
spawn in this country to supply the American market.
There is no practical operation in connection with the
cultivation of mushrooms so little known or understood
by the general grower as the growing (or “making,” as
it is commonly called) and preserving of mushroom
spawn. General cultivators in England and France
{outside of the Paris caves) do not make their own

MUSHLOOM SPAWN. 87

spawn; it is a distinct branch of the business, and car-
ried on by specialists who grow mushrooms for sale in
winter, and spawn in summer.

The time and attention required to produce a small
quantity of first-class spawn are worth more than the
cost of the spawn at the seed store. In order to make
spawn profitably we must make it in large quantity, and
we need not altempt to make it unless we have good
materials and conditions for its proper preparation,
and will give it every attention possible for its best
development.

Because spawn may be made in America is no reason
whatever why the American people will buy it. We
must produce, at least, as good an article as the best in
Europe before we can find countenance in our home
market. It is not the shape of the manure brick, its
size, fine finish, hardness, softness, or freshness, that
counts in this case; it is the fullness and vitality of the
mass of mycelium or mushroom plant that is contained
within it.

HOW TO MAKE BRICK SPAWN.

As the making of brick spawn for sale is not yet an
American industry, but almost entirely confined to Eng-
land, I think it best to restrict myself to describing how
it is made in England. Mr. John F. Barter, of Lance-
field street, London, is one of the most successful mush-
room growers and spawn makers in Great Britain. He
writes me that he confines himself entirely to the mush-
room business; he makes his living by it. He grows
mushrooms in the winter months and makes spawn in
the summer months; he employs men for mushroom
bed making from August until March, then, to keep on
the same hands during summer, he makes spawn for sale.
He grows for and sells in the London market about
21,000 pounds of mushrooms a year, and in summer

88 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

makes some 10,000 bushels, equal to 160,000 pounds, of
brick spawn for sale. The amount of spawn made in a
year by this one manufacturer is about three times as
much as the total annual importation of mushroom
‘spawn of all kinds into this country. And he is only
one maker among several. This fact alone must con-
vince us that mushroom-growing is carried on to a vastly
greater extent in European countries than it is here,
where we have as good facilities as they have, and an
immensely better market.

The manner of making the spawn differs a little with
the different manufacturers, and no one can become pro-
ficient in it without practical knowledge. I asked Mr.
Barter if he thought spawn could be made profitably in
this country, paying, as we do, $1.80 a day for laborers,
and without any certainty of the same men staying with
us permanently. He writes me: ‘Uncertain labor
would be of no use. Of course the wages you pay would
not affect it much, as I pay nearly as much as that for
my leading men. But to begin with, you must have a
man that has had some experience.”

About the simplest and best way of making brick
spawn that I find described is the following from The
Gardeners’ Assistant. I may here state that Robert
Thompson, the author of this work, was for many years
the superintendent of the Royal Horticultural Society’s
gardens at Chiswick, near London, and, in his day, was
regarded as without a peer in practical horticulture, and
lived in the midst of the market gardens of London and
the principal mushroom-growing district.

“Fresh horse droppings, cow dung, and a little loam
mixed and beaten up with as much stable drainings as
may be necessary to reduce the whole to the consistence
of mortar. It may then be spread on the floor of an
open shed, and when somewhat firm it may be cut into
cakes of six inches square. "These should be placed on

MUSHROOM SPAWN. 89

edge in a dry, airy place, and must be frequently turned
and protected from rain. When half dry make a hole
in the broadside of-each, large enough to admit of about
an inch square of good old spawn being inserted so deep
as to be a little below the surface; close it with some
moist material the same as used in making the bricks.
When the bricks are nearly dry make, on a dry bottom,
a layer nine inches thick of horse dung prepared as for
a hotbed, and on this pile the bricks rather openly.
Cover with litter so that the steam and heat of the layer
of dung may circulate among the bricks. The temper-
ature, however, should not rise above 60°; therefore,
if it is likely to do so, the covering must be reduced
accordingly. The spawn will soon begin to run through
the bricks, which should be frequently examined whilst
the process of spawning is going on, and when, on
breaking, the spawn appears throughout pretty abun-
dantly, like a white mold, the process has gone far
enough. If allowed to proceed the spawn would form
threads and small tubercles, which is a stage too far
advanced for the retention of its vegctative powers.
Therefore, when the spawn is observed to pervade the
bricks throughout like a white mold, and before it as-
sumes the thread-like form, it should be removed and
allowed to dry in order to arrest the further progress of
vegetation till required for use. It ought to be kept in
a dark and perfectly dry place.” I would add, do not
keep it where it is apt to become musty or moldy in
summer; also keep it in as cool a dry place as possible
in summer, and always above 35° in winter.

Thesc other recipes are also given :

“‘1. Horse droppings one part, cow dung one-fourth,
loam one twentieth.

“<2, Fresh horse droppings mixed with short litter
one part, cow dung one-third, and a small portion of
loam.

90 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

“3. Equal parts of horse dung, cow dung, and
sheep’s dung, with the addition of some rotten leaves or
old hotbed dung.

“4, Horse dung one part, cow dung two parts,
sheep’s dung one part.

“5. Horse droppings from the roads one part, cow
dung two parts, mixed with a little loam.

“6. Horse dung, cow dung, and loam, in equal
parts.”

From the above it appears that horse dung and cow
dung are the principals in spawn bricks; the loam is
added for the purpose of, making the other materials
hold together; it also absorbs the ammonia, which other-
wise would pass off.

J. Burton’s Method. From The Hitchen and Mar-
ket Garden.—Make the spawn in early spring. As cow
manure is the principal ingredient used in making the
bricks this should be secured before the animals get any
green food. Store it on the floor of an open, dry, airy
shed, and turn it every few days for a week or two.
Then add an equal part of the following: Fresh horse
droppings, a little loam, and chopped straw, mixed to-
gether. ‘‘The whole should then be worked well
together and then trodden down, after which it may be
allowed to remain for a few days, when it will be required
to be turned two or three times a week. If the weather
be fine and dry the mass will soon be in a fit condition
for molding into bricks, which process can be performed
by using a mold in the same way as the brick makers,
or, . . . the manure may be spread evenly on the
floor to a thickness of six inches, and then be firmly
trodden and beaten down evenly with the back of the
spade. It should then be lined out to the required size
of the bricks, and be cut with a sharp spade or turfing
iron. In a few days the bricks will be sufficiently dry
to handle, when they should be set up edgeways to dry

MUSHROOM SPAWN. 91

thoroughly, and if exposed to the sun for two or three
days they will be ready to receive the spawn. In intro-
ducing the spawn two holes large enough to admit a
piece of spawn as big as a pigeon’s egg should be cut in
each brick at equal distances. ‘This should be well
beaten in and the surface made even with a little ma-
nure. The bricks should then be collected together in
a heap and covered with enough short manure to cause
a gentle heat, being careful that there is no rank heat or
steam to kill the spawn. This must be carefully at-
tended to until the spawn is found to have penetrated
through the whole of the bricks, after which they should
be stacked away in any convenient dry place.”

HOW TO MAKE FRENCH (flake) sPAWN.

I can not do better than to let a practical Frenchman
engaged in the business tell this story. In Vol. XIII of
the London Garden J find an English translation of
M. Lachaume’s book, ‘‘The Cave Mushroom,” and this
comment by the editor: ‘‘The most complete account
of the cave culture of mushrooms which has been pub-
lished by any cultivator on the spot well acquainted
with the subject is that recently published by M.
Lachaume.”

Lachaume says: ‘‘The best spawn to use is what is
called ‘virgin spawn’; that is to say, which has not yet
produced mushrooms. In this country this kind of
spawn may be procured of any respectable nurseryman,
under the name of ‘French spawn.’ It differs from
English spawn by being in the form of small tufty cakes,
instead of in compact blocks. Large mushroom grow-
ers, however, always provide themselves with their own
spawn by taking it from a bed which is just about to
produce its crop. or which has already produced a few
small mushrooms. . . . It is true that by thus
‘breeding in and in,’ as it were, the mushrooms show a

92 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GEOW THEM.

tendency to deteriorate after a time; new spawn must
therefore be obtained as soon as any signs of deteriora-
tion begin to manifest themselves.”

Making French Virgin Spawn.—Condensed from
Lachaume’s book on mushrooms. ‘Take five or six bar-
row loads of horse droppings that have lain in a heap for
some time, and lost their heat, and mix them with one-
fourth of their bulk of short stable litter. Then, in
April, open a trench two feet wide, twenty inches deep,
and length to suit, at the foot of, but eight inches dis-
tant from, a wall facing north. In the bottom of the
trench spread a layer three to four inches deep of chopped
straw, then an equally thick layer of the prepared ma-
nure, all pressed firmly by treading it down. The two
layers niust now be gently watered, and then another
double layer of chopped straw and droppings must be
laid, trodden down and watered, and so on until the top
of the trench is reached. The bed ought to rise above
the level of the ground and be rounded off like the top
of a trunk. To prevent excessive dampness from heavy
rain cover the mound with a thick layer of stable litter.
Three months after filling the trench it should be opened
at the side or end. If the pieces of manure are well cov-
ered with masses of bluish-white filaments, yviving off
the odor of mushrooms, the operation has succeeded, and
the spawn is fit for use or for drying to preserve for
future use. But if the threads are only sparingly scat-
tered through the mass, the trench should be covered up
again and left for another month. In saving the spawn
the flakes of manure containing the largest amount of
spawn filaments should be retained, and those showing
a brown appearance rejected. In order to facilitate the
drying of the spawn the flakes should be broken into
pieces, weighing from one to two pounds; they are then
placed in a well ventilated shed, but they must not be
piled upon each other. Properly prepared and dried
this spawn keeps good fer ten years.

MUSHROOM SPAWN. 93

A Second Method (by Lachaume). ‘This is gener-
ally adopted by mushroom growers. The formation of
the spawn is accelerated by adding pieces of old spawn
here and there. . . . At the beginning of April we
must choose a piece of ground situated at the foot of a
wall facing north, . . . The soil ought to be very
open and light rather than heavy, ‘so as to avoid damp-
ness. Taking advantage of a fine day, we open a trench
sixteen inches wide and at about eight inches from the
foot of the wall, and of a length adapted to the quantity
of spawn we desire to produce. The earth is thrown
out on the side opposite the wall. Manure which has
been prepared for « mushroom bed, and has just come
into condition is then filled into the trench, leaving,
however, a space at one end of it about two feet and six
inches in length for the formation of a mushroom bed,
which is made by tossing the manure about and shaking
it up with the hands, after which it is pressed down
with the hands and-knees. As soon as the layer of
manure reaches six inches in thickness we place along
the edge a number of lumps of spawn at about one foot
apart. ‘These lumps are placed level with the manure
ou the edge facing the wall. This portion of the surface
of the manure ought to be raised vertically, and should
lean against the earthen wall of the trench. The other
half of the surface ought to slope gently toward the
wall, leaving a space of three or four inches between it
and the side of the trench, so that it may be trimmed.
The lumps of spawn on this surface should be placed a
little backward,-so that they may not be broken when
the bed is trimmed. ‘The bed is then covered with more
manure, until the first lumps of spawn are buried three
or four inches deep. A second row of lumps of spawn
is then inserted, as described in the directions for mak-
ing the first row, and the bed is filled up level with the
surface of the soil. It is finished by covering it up with

94 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

a layer of fine, dry soil three or four inches thick. The
spawn ought to be very dry, otherwise we shall get a
premature crop of mushrooms instead of fresh spawn.
At the end of six weeks or a couple of months the new
spawn ought to make its appearance, a fact which we
may learn by opening the bed. One sign, which will
sive us the trouble of opening up the beds, is the appear-
ance of young mushrooms on the surface. The layer of
earth is first removed, and then the cakes of spawn are
treated as described in the directions given for the first
method of making spawn.”

Third Method (by Lachaume). “By filling in a
trench like that described in the first method, by a series
of layers of one-third of pigeon or fowl guano, and two-
thirds of short manure, containing a large proportion of
spent horse droppings, treading it down firmly, watering
it if it is too dry, and finishing up with a layer of soil,
as described already, we may, at the end of a couple of
months, or even a little longer, procure a supply of well-
formed cakes of spawn of excellent quality, which may
be used in the ordinary manner.”

From Mr. Robinson’s ‘‘Mushroom Culture.” ‘This
(French) spawn is obtained by preparing a little bed, as
if for mushrooms, in the ordinary way, and spawning it
with morsels of virgin spawn, if that is obtainable; and
then when the spawn has spread through it, the bed is
broken up and used for spawning beds in the caves, or
dried and preserved for sale.”

From Mr. Wright’s book on mushrooms. ‘‘ French
spawn . . is contained in flakes of manure. Neither
is it virgin spawn, nor derived immediately from it,

but is spawn taken from one bed for impreg-
nating another.”

Relative Merits of Flake and Brick Spawn.—
The flake or French spawn costs about three times as
much as the brick or English spawn, and, as it is so

MUSHROOM SPAWN. 95

much whiter with mycelium than is the brick spawn,
many believe that it is more potent and well worth the
additional cost. In spawning the beds I use two pounds
of flake spawn to plant the same space for which I would
use five pounds of brick spawn, and this gives a capital
crop, with number of mushrooms a little in favor of the
flake spawn, but on account of the larger size of the
mushrooms the weight of crop is considerably in favor of
the brick spawn. And I find more certainty of a crop
in the case of the brick spawn than in the other.

Regarding the respective merits of brick and flake
spawn, Mr. Barter, in response to my inquiry, writes
me: ‘I have tried them both, and know brick spawn
to be far the best. You see, I do nothing but this
mushroom business for a living, so, of course, would
use the best kind of spawn for my crop. Generally the
French spawn produces one-third less mushrooms than
does the brick spawn from the same length of bed,
besides, these from the brick spawn are by far the heavi-
est and fleshiest.”

I would here observe that Mr. Barter’s remarks apply
more to ridge beds out of doors than beds in the cellar
or mushroom house. And it is odd, but true, that the
flake spawn does not produce as good results in outdoor
beds as it does in those under cover.

CHAPTER XI.

*
SPAWNING THE BEDS.

After the mushroom bed is made up it should, within
a few days, warm to a temperature of 110° to 120°.
Carefully observe this, and never spawn a bed when the
heat is rising, or when it is warmer than 100°, but always
when it is on the decline and under 90°. In this there
is perfect safety. Have a ground thermometer and keep
it plunged in the bed ; by pulling it out and looking at
it one can know exactly the temperature of the bed.
Have a few straight, smooth stakes, like short walking
canes, and stick the end of these into the bed, twelve to
twenty feet apart; by pulling them out and feeling
them with the hand one can tell pretty closely what the
temperature of the bed is.

All practical mushroom growers know that if the tem-
perature of a twelve inch thick bed at seven inches from
the surface is 100°, that within an iach of the surface of
the bed will only be about 95° indoors, and 85° to 90°
out of doors. Also, that when the heat of the manure
is on the decline it falls quite rapidly, five, often ten
degrees, a day, till it reaches about 75°, and between
that and 65° it may rest for weeks.

Some years ago I gave considerable attention to this
matter of spawning beds at different temperatures.
Spawn planted as soon as the bed was made (five days
after spawning the heat in interior of bed ran up to 123°)
yielded no mushrooms, the mycelium being killed. The
same was the case in all becs where the spawn had been
planted before the heat in the beds had attained its max-

96

SPAWNING THE BEDs. 97

imum (120° or over). Where the heat in the middle of
the bed never reached 115°, the spawn put in when the
bed was made, and molded over the same day, yielded a
small crop of mushrooms. A bed in which the heat was
declining was spawned at 110°; this bore a very good
crop, and at 100° and under to 65° good crops in every
case were secured, with several days’ delay in bearing in
the case of the lowest temperatures. But notwithstand-
ing these facts, my advice to all beginners in mushroom
growing is, wait until the heat of the bed is on the decline
and fallen to at least 90°, before inserting the spawn.

Writing to me about spawning his beds, Mr. Withing-
ton, of New Jersey, says: ‘‘I believe a bed spawned
at 60° to 70°, and kept at 55° after the mushrooms
appear, will give better results than one spawned at a
higher temperature, say 90°.”

Preparing the Spawn.—If brick spawn is used cut
up the bricks (standard size) into ten or twelve pieces
with a sharp hatchet, and avoid, as much as possible,

BRICK SPAWN CUT IN PIECES FOR PLANTING.

making many crumbs, as is the case generally when a
hammer or mallet is used in breaking the bricks. Extra
large pieces of spawn are apt to produce large clumps of
mushrooms, but this is not always an advantage, as
when many mushrooms grow together in a clump they
are apt to be somewhat undersized, and in gathering we
can not pluck them all out clean enough so as not to
leave a part of the ‘‘root” in the ground to poison the
7

98 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

balance of the clump, in cases where several or many of
them spring from one common base.

Inserting the Spawn.—When brick spawn is used
plant the lumps about an inch deep under the surface of
the manure, and about ten inches apart each way. If
the spawn looks very good, and the lumps are large do
not plani them quite so close as when the spawn shows
less mycelium in it, and the lumps are small. Never use
a dibber in planting spawn; simply make’ a hole in the
manure with the fingers, insert the Jump and cover it
over at once, and as soon as the bed has been planted
firm it well all over. Although the lumps are buried
only an inch deep under the manure, we have to make a
hole three or four inches deep to push the lump into to
get it buried.

French or flake spawn is inserted in much the same
way and at about the same distance, only, instead of
cutting it up into lumps, we merely break it into flaky
pieces about threé inches long by an inch thick, and in
planting it in the beds, in place of pushing it into the
hole, lay in the flake on its flat side and at once cover it.

Many growers plant spawn a good deal deeper than I
do, but I have never found any advantage in deep plant-
ing. In moderately warm beds, or beds that are likely
to retain their heat for a considerable time, I am satis-
fied that shallow planting is better than deep planting.
When we want to mold over our beds soon after spawn-
ing them, shallow planting is to be recommended. But
if the beds are only 75° to 78°, before being spawned;
then I think deep planting is better than shallow plant-
ing, because the genial temperature gives the mycelium
a better start in life than would the cooler manure
nearer the surface.

If there is any likclihood of the surface manure get-
ting wet from the condensed moisture of the atmosphere,
I would again cover over the beds with some hay or

SPAWNING THE BEDS, 99

straw, and let it remain on until molding time. And
if the bed is a little sluggish,—that is, cool,—this cover-
ing will help in keeping it warm. Outside beds should
be molded over in three or four days after spawning ;
inside beds in eight to ten days.

Steeped Spawn.—As brick spawn is so hard and
dry I have tried the effect of steeping it in tepid water
before planting ; some pieces were merely dipped in the
water, and others allowed to soak in the pails one-half,
one, five, and ten hours. The effect was prejudicial in
every instance and ruinous in the case of the long-soaked
pieces.

Flake Spawn.—‘“‘This is produced by breaking up
the brick spawn into pieces about two inches square and
mixing them in a heap of manure that is fermenting
gently. After lying in this heap about three weeks it
will be found one mass of spawn, and just in the right
condition for running vigorously all through the bed in
a very short time. - . . When flake spawn is used
the appearance of the crop is from two to three weeks
earlier than when brick spawn is used.”—Mr. Henshaw,
in first edition of ‘‘Henderson’s Handbook of Plants.”
I have tried this method and given it careful attention,
but the results were inferior to those obtained where
plain, common brick spawn had been used at once.

In all my practice I have found that any disturbance
of the spawn when in active growth which would cause
a breaking, exposing, or arresting of the threads of the
mycelium has always had a weakening influence upon
it. I have transplanted pieces of working spawn from
one bed to another, as the French growers do, but am
satisfied that I get better crops and larger mushrooms
from beds spawned with dry spawn than from beds
planted with working spawn from any other beds.

CHAPTER XII.
LOAM FOR THE BEDS.

In growing mushrooms we need loam for casing the
beds after they are spawned, topdressing the bearing
beds when they first show signs of exhaustion, filling up
the cavities in the surface of the beds caused by the
removal of the mushroom stumps, and for mixing with
manure to form the beds. The selection of soil depends
a good deal on what kind of soil we have at hand, or can
readily obtain.

The best kind of loam for every purpose in connection
with mushroom-growing is rich, fresh, mellow soil, such
as florists eagerly seek for potting and other greenhouse
purposes. In early fall I get together a pile of fresh
sod loam, that is, the top spit from a pasture field, but
do not add any manure to it. Of course, while this
contains a good deal of grassy sod there is mnch fine
soil among it, and this is what I use for mushrooms.
Before using it I break up the sods with a spade or fork,
throw aside the very toughest parts of them, and use
the finer earthy portion, but always in its rough state,
and never sifted. The green, soddy parts that are not
too rough are allowed to remain in the soil, for they do
no harm whatever, either in arresting the mycelium or
checking the mushrooms, and there is no danger that
the grass would grow up and smother the mushrooms.

Common loam from an open, well-drained fallow field
is good, and, if the soil is naturally rich, excellent for
any purpose. But do not take it from the wet parts of
the fields. Reject all stones, rough clods, tussocks, and
the like. Such loam may be used at once.

100

LOAM FOR THE BEDS. 101

Ordinary garden soil is used more frequently than any
other sort, and altogether with highly satisfactory results.
The greatest objection I have to it is the amount of
insects it is apt to contain on account of its often re-
peated heavy manurings

Roadside dirt, whether loamy or gritty, may also be
used with good results. If free from weeds, sticks,
stones and rough drift, it may be used at once, but it is
much better to stack it in a pile to rot for a few months
before using.

Sandy soil, such as occurs in the water-shed drifts
along the roads and where it has been washed into the
fields, is much inferior to stiffer and more fibrous earth.

I have used the rich dark colored soil from slopes and
dry hollows in woods, and, odd though it may appear,
as mushrooms do not naturally grow in woods, with suc-
cess. But it is not as good as loam from the open field.

Peat soil or swamp muck that has been composted for
two or three years has failed to give me good returns.
The mushrooms will come up through it all right, but
they do not take kindly to it.

Heavy, clayey loam is, in one way, excellent, in
another, not so good. So long as we can keep it equably
moist without making it muddy it is all right, but if we
let it get a little too dry it cracks, and in this way breaks
the threads of the spawn and ruins the mushrooms that
were fed through them.

Loam Containing Old Manure.—Loam in which
there is a good deal of old, undecomposed manure, such
as the rich soil of our vegetable gardens, is unqualifi-
edly condemned by some writers because of the quantity
of spurious and noxious fungi it is supposed to produce
when used in mushroom beds. ButI can not join in
this denunciation because my experience does not justify
it. This earth is the only kind used by many market
gardeners, as they have no other, and certainly without

102 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

apparent injurious effect. When I was connected with
the London market gardens, some twenty years ago,
Steele, Bagley, Broadbent, and the other large mush-
room growers in the Fulham Fields cased all of their
beds with the common garden soil—perhaps the most
manure-filled soil on the face of the earth—and spurious
fungi never troubled them. Indeed, I can not under-
stand why it should produce baneful crops of toadstools
when used in mushroom beds, and no toadstools when
used for other horticultural purposes, as on our carna-
tion benches in greenhouses, in our lettuce or cucumber
beds, or in the case of potted plants. True, spurious
fungi may appear in the earth on our greenhouse benches
or frame beds or mushroom beds at any time and in
more or less quantity, but I am convinced that the rich
earth of the vegetable garden has no more to do with
producing toadstools than has any other good soil, and
old manure has far less to do with it than has fresh
manure. ;

All practical gardeners know how apt hotbeds, in
spring when their heat is on the decline, are to produce
a number of toadstools; and, also, that when the bed is
“‘spent,” that is, when the heat is altogether gone, the
tendency to bear toadstools has gone too. This peculiar-
ity is more apparent in spring than in fall. All mush-
room growers know that spurious fungi, when they
appear at all, are most numerous three to two weeks
before it is time for the mushrooms to come in sight.
The same growth appears in the manure piles out in the
yard ; a few weeks after the strong heat of the manure
has gone lots of toadstools may be observed on and about
the heaps, but on the piles of well-rotted cold manure
we seldom find toadstools at all.

The fresh, clean stable manure used in mushroom-
growing is not apt to be charged with the spores of per-
Dicious toadstools ; their presence is aiwavs most marked
in the case of mixed manures.

EARTHING OVER THE BEDS. 103

And there is a current idea that mushrooms will not
thrive in beds in which old manure abounds, either in
the loam or fermenting material; that it kills the myce-
lium, This, too, I must refute. I have seen heavy
crops of spontaneous mushrooms come up in violet and
carnation beds in winter, and where the soil consisted of
at least one-fourth of rotted manure well mixed with
the earth. In cucumber ard lettuce beds the same
thing has taken place. And in similar beds that have
been planted artificially with spawn, good crops of mush-
rooms have also becn raised, and the mycelium, instead
of evading the lumps of old manure in the soil often
forms a white web right through them.

CHAPTER XIII.
EARTHING OVER THE BEDS.

This is an important operation in mushroom-growing,
and the one for which loam is indispensable. It con-
sists in covering the manure beds, after they have been
spawned, with a coating, or casing as it is more com-
monly called, of loam. The spawn spreads in the ma-
nure and rises up into the casing, where most of the
young mushrooms develop, and all find a firm foothold.
The loam also contributes to their sustenance. And it
protects the manure, hence the spawn, from sudden
fluctuations of temperature, and preserves it from undue
wetting or drying.

The best soil to use for this purpose is rich, fibrous,
mellow loam, such as is described, page 100.

If the manure is fresh and in good condition and the
beds are in a snug cellar or closed mushroom house, I
would not case them until the seeond week after spawn-

104 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

ing, say about the eighth or tenth day; but were these
same beds in an open, airy shed or other building I
would case them over some days earlier, say the fourth
or fifth day. A fear is often expressed that when beds
are cased within three or four days after being spawned
the close exclusion of the manure from the air is apt to
raise the beat of the manure in the bed, and thereby
destroy the spawn ; but I have never known of any truth
in this theory, and with well-prepared manure I am sat-
isfied no brisk reheating takes place, at least the ‘ther-
mometer does not indicate it. The great danger of
early casing is in killing the spawn by burying it too
deep in damp material and before it has begun to run
through the manure.

I have conducted several experiments in order to sat-
isfy myself regarding when is the proper time to case
the beds, and have found no difference in results between
beds that were cased over as soon as they were spawned
and others that were not cased over until the fourth,
seventh, tenth, or fourteenth day after spawning. The
good or bad results in the time of casing depend on the
condition of the manure in the beds, the depth at which
the spawn has been inserted, the openness or closeness
of the place in which the beds are situated, and other
cultural conditions. But to delay casing as late as the
fifteenth or sixteenth day after spawning is injurious to
the crop, because in applying the covering of soil we are
sure to break many of the mycelium threads that have
by this time so freely permeated the surface of the ma-
nure. After the fourth week little white knots may be
observed here and there on the spawn threads; these
are forming mushrooms, and to delay casing the bed
until this time would smother these little pinheads, and
greatly mar our prospects of a good crop..

Peter Henderson, in his invaluable work, ‘‘ Gardening
for Profit,” has given rise to a deep seated prejudice

EALTHING OVER THE BEDS. 105

against molding over mushroom beds as soon as they
cre spawned by telling us that in his first attempt at
mushroom-growing he had labored for two years without
being able to produce a single mushroom, and all be-
cause he molded over his beds with a two-inch casing of
loam just as soon as he had spawned them. Then he
changed his tactics, and did not mold over the beds
until the tenth or twelfth day after spawning, and was
rewarded with good crops of mushrooms. Now, not-
withstanding Mr. Henderson’s experience, it is a fact
that many excellent growers spawn and mold their beds
the same day, and with success. But Mr. H. has done
much good in displaying a rock against which many
might be wrecked, so much depends upon other cultural
conditions. The old practice of inserting the spawn
three or more inches deep into the manure bed and then
molding it at once with two inches deep of loam was
enough to destroy the most potent spawn ; nowadays we
barely cover the spawn with the manure, and this is
how molding over at once is so successful.

All the preparation necessary is to have the loam in
medium dry, mellow condition, well broken up with the
spade or digging fork, and freed from sticks, stones, big
roots, clods, chunks of old manure, and the like.

Sifting the soil for “casing the beds is labor lost.
Sifted soil has no advantage over unsifted earth, except
when it is to be used for topdressing the bearing beds or
filling up the holes in their surface.

The condition of the soil should be mellow but inclined
tomoist. If wet it can only be used clumsily and spread
with difficulty; if dry it can be spread easily but not
made firm, and on ridge beds can not be put on evenly.
But when moderately moist it can be spread easily and
evenly on flat or rounded surfaces, and made firm and
smooth.

How deep the mold shall be put upon the bed is also

106 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

an unsettled question. Some growers recommend three-
fourths of an inch, others one, one and one-half, two,
or two and one-half inches, and some of our best grow-
ers of fifty or seventy-five years ago were emphatic in
asserting three inches as the proper depth, but among
recent writers I do not find any who go beyond two and
one-half inches. My own experience is in favor of a
heavy covering, say one and one-half to two inches. In
the case of a thin covering the mushrooms come up all
right but their texture is not as solid as it is in the case
of a heavy covering, nor do the beds continue as long in
bearing ; besides, ‘‘ fogging off” is much more prevalent
under thinly covered than under heavily covered beds ;
also, when the coating of loam is heavy a great many
more of the “‘pinheads” develop into full sized mush-
rooms than in the case of thinly molded beds.

Opinions differ as to firming the soil. Iam in favor
of packing the soil quite firm, and have never seen good
mushrooms that could not come through a well firmed
casing of loam, and I never knew of an instance where
firm casing stopped or checked the spreading of the
mycelium or the development of the mushrooms. In the
case of flat beds,—for instance, those made on shelves
and floors,—a slightly compacted coating (and this is all
Mr. J. G. Gardner uses) may be all right, but in the
case of alongside-of-walls, ridge, and other rounded beds
I much prefer and always use solidly compacted casings.

Mr. Henshaw has for several years used green sods
about two inches thick, put all over the bed, grass side
down, and beaten firmly. The advantage of using sods
instead of soil, he thinks, is that the young clusters of
mushrooms never damp or ‘fogg off’ as they are apt to
do when soil is used.

I have given this green sods method repeated and
careful trials, and am satisfied that it has no advantages,
in any way, over common fibrous loam; indeed, it is

TOPDRESSING WITH LOAM. 107

not as good. No matter how firmly a sod, having its
green side down, may be beaten on to a bed of manure,
there is barely any union between the two; the sod
merely rests upon the dung, but so closely that the my-
celium enters it freely. A slight movement or displace.
ment of the sod after the spawn enters it will break the
threads of mycelium between the manure and the sod,
and this will destroy the immature mushrooms forming
in thesod. This gave mea good deal of trouble. Step-
ping on the sod would disturb it. A clump of strong
mushrooms formed under it sometimes displaces it in
forcing their way to the surface.

Sods are only fit for use on flat beds where they can
lie solid ; on rounded or ridge beds they are too liable to
be disturbed. And the trouble and expense of procur-
ing sods are too great to warrant their use, even if they
had any advantages. .

CHAPTER XIV.
TOPDRESSING WITH LOAM.

In beds that are in full bearing or a little past their
best we often find multitudes of very small or what we
call “‘ pinhead” mushrooms, that seem to be sitting right
on the top of the loam, or clumps that have been raised
a little above the surface by growing in bunches, or what
we term “rocks”; now a topdressing of finely sifted
fresh loam, about one-fourth to one-half inch thick,
spread all over the bed, will help these mushrooms ma-
terially without doing any of them harm. But while
this topdressing assists al] mushrooms that are visible
above ground, no matter how small they may be when
the dressing is applied, I am not convinced that it

108 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

induces greater fertility in the spawn, or, in other words,
induces the spawn to spread further and produce more
mushrooms than it would were no topdressing applied.
I know that this is contrary to the opinions and writings
of many, at the same time it is according to my own
observation.

Go over the bed very carefully and pick out every soft
or ‘‘fogged-off” mushroom, no matter how small it may
be, and root out every bit of old mushroom stem or
tough spongy material formed by it, and in this way get
the bed thoroughly cleaned. Then fill up all the holes
caused by pulling the mushrooms or rooting out the old
stumps, and when the whole surface is level apply the
topdressing evenly all over the face of the bed, avoiding,
as much as possible, burying the well advanced mush-
rooms. While it would be very well to pack the dress-
ing smoothly over the bed, it is impracticable; we may
press it gently with the back of the hand on the bare
spots between the mushrooms, but we should not even
do this over the mushrooms, no matter how tiny they
may be, else many of the “‘pinheads” will be injured
and cause “fogging off.” |

But we can firm the dressing to the bed by watering
it, which may be done over the whole surface of the bed,
and without sparing the mushrooms, -large or smal).
Use clear water and apply it gently through a water-pot
rose. I always do this, and have never known it to
injure the young mushrooms.

In the case of mushroom beds in which black spot has
appeared in the crop, I have found that a topdressing of
fine, fresh earth applied evenly all over the bed acts, to
a certain extent, as a preventive of further attack, but
of course has no effect upon any of the already affected
mushrooms, large or small.

CHAPTER XV.
THE PROPER TEMPERATURE.

The best temperature at which to keep the mushroom
house or cellar is 55° to 57°. But much depends upon
the method of growing the esculent; the construction
of the house or cellar, and other circumstances. Mush-
rooms can be successfully grown in buildings in which
the temperature may be as low as 20° or as high as 65°.
By covering the beds well with hay or other protecting
material they can be kept warm, even in sharp frosty
weather, as the London market gardeners do with their
outdoor beds in winter; but when the temperature in
the structure in which the mushrooms are grown aver-
ages as high as 70° we can not hope for success; indeed,
65° is too high.

A high temperature in a close house or cellar is injuri-
ous; it hurries in the crop and forces up the mushrooms
weak and thin-fleshed and with ungainly, long stems;
it soon exhausts the bed. The time when its evil effects
are least visible is early in the fall and late. in spring
when the outside temperature is high, and when the
beds are in somewhat airy rather than close quarters. In
the Dosoris cellars there is a steady difference of about
5° in the temperature between the end next the boiler,
which is kept at 60° precisely, and that of the farther
end, which registers 55° steadily. There is very little
difference in the weight of crop produced or. the beds at
either end of these cellars, but what little there is is in
favor of the cooler end. At 60° the crop begins to come
in in six to seven weeks after spawning, lasts for three

109

110 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.
to four weeks in heavy bearing and a week or more
longer in light bearing, and then it gradually dwindles.

In a temperature of 55° it may be seven weeks after
spawning before the mushrooms appear. In a tempera-
ture of 50° they may take a few days longer in appear-
ing, but, as a rule, they are firm, heavy, short-stemmed,
and perhaps a little furry on top and clammy to the
touch, and the beds last in good bearing for two months;
indeed, often a whole winter long. But I have failed to
find that the whole crop from a bed in a 45° to 50° tem-
perature was any greater than that of a like bed in a 55°
to 57° temperature; it is merely a case of getting in six
weeks from the warmer house what it takes ten weeks
to get from the cooler one.

In a temperature of 50° it is not necessary to cover
the beds to increase their warmth, nor is it needful even
in one of 45°, if there is a fair warmth in the body of
the bed to keep the spawn working; but if the warmth
of the interior of the bed falls under 57°, and the atmos-
pheric temperature under 45°, the bed should be kept
warm by covering with hay, straw, matting, or other
material, or better still by boxing it over and laying
this covering on the outside of the boxing. When cold
thicken the covering, when warm lessen it.

CHAPTER XVI.
WATERING MUSHROOM BEDS.

If the beds get dry they should be watered, for mush-
rooms will not grow well in dry beds or in a dry atmos-
phere. Watcring is an operation requiring much care.
In properly-made beds the manure should remain moist
enough from first to last, and whatever dryness is evident
should be in the loam casing of the beds and the atmos-
phere. In all artificially heated mushroom houses the
beds and atmosphere are apt to get too dry at one time or
another ; in underground houses or cellars this is less
apparent than in above-ground structures; in shaded
north-facing houses dryness is less troublesome than in
houses more openly placed.

Endeavor by all fair means to lessen the necessity for
watering the beds, but when water is needed never hesi-
tate to give it freely. Mulching the beds and maintain-
ing a moist atmosphere are the best preventives. After
the beds are spawned and molded it is a good plan to
cover them with a light coating of strawy litter or hay
to prevent drying,. but this mulching should be removed
when it is near time for the young mushrooms to appear.
A light sprinkling of water over this mulching every
few days, but never enough to reach the soil, assists in
preserving enough moisture in the bed under the mulch
and also in the atmosphere of the house.

Clean, soft water at a temperature of 80° or 90°; a
little warmer or a little colder will not hurt, but do not
use water higher than 110°, as it might injure the little
pinheads, nor lower than the average temperature of the

111

112 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

house, as it would chill the bed, and this should always
be avoided.

Use a small or medium-sized watering pot with a long
spout and a fine rose sprinkler. Apply the water ina
gentle shower over the bed, mushrooms and all, but
never use enough to allow it to settle in pools or run off
in little streams. Clean water sprinkled over the mush-
rooms does not appear to hurt them, but they should
never be touched with manure water, as it stains them.
Just as soon as the surface of the bed shows signs of
dryness give it water, the quantity depending upon the
condition of the bed. Never let a bed get very dry
before watering it. To thoroughly moisten a very dry
bed requires a heavy watering; so much, indeed, that
the sudden change might injuriously affect the young
mushrooms and spawn. Give enough water at a time to
moderately moisten the soil, not to soak it, but never
sufficient to pass through the soil into the manure.
Clean water only should be used until the beds come
into bearing, but after that time manure water may be
employed with advantage; however, this is not at all
all imperative ; indeed, excellent crops can be and are
continually being produced without the aid of manure
water at all.

In the case of beds in full bearing, manure water is
beneficial to the crop. Apply it from a small watering
pot with a long narrow spout but no rose, and pour the
quid on gently over the surface of the bed, running it
freely between the clumps but never touching any of
the mushrooms. For this reason a rose should not be
used.

I have always used manure water for mushrooms more
or less, but during the past ‘two seasons—’87-’88 and
’88-’89—I have experimented with it continuously and
very carefully, using it in some form or other on part of
every bed, and am satisfied that manure water made

WATERING MUSHROOM BEDS. 113

from fresh horse droppings is the best, and the dark
colored liquid, the drainings from marure piles, is the
poorest ; in fact, this latter is not as good as plain water,
for it seems to have a deadening rather than quickening
effect upon the beds. Cow manure and sheep manure
make a good liquid manure, but still I prefer the horse
manure, and although having given hen and pigeon
manure ar.d guano fair tests I am not satisfied that they
have benefited the crop, and there is always a risk in
their use. Liquid manure made from the contents of
the barnyard tank has not done much good, but fresh
urine from the horse and cow stables diluted twelve to
fifteen times its bulk has given favorable results.

Mushrooms not only bear with impunity but appear
to enjoy a stronger liquid manure more than do any
other cultivated plants, and I am satisfied that the weak
liquids usually recommended for pot and garden plants
would be barely more efficacious than plain water for
mushrooms. .

The manure water that has given me most satisfaction
1s prepared as follows: Dump two bushels of fresh horse
droppings into a forty-five gallon barrel and fill up with
water; stir it up well and let it settle over night. Drain
off the liquid the next day and add a pound of saltpeter
to it. For use, to a pailful of this liquid add a pailful
of warm water. Water of about 80° to 90° is best for
mushroom beds. Saltpeter is an excellent fertilizer for
mushrooms. I use it in two ways, namely: First, pow-
dered and mixed in the soil for casing the beds, at the
rate of two ounces of saltpeter to the bushel of earth.
Second, dissolved in water at the rate of two ounces of
saltpeter to eight gallons of water, and sprinkled over
the beds.

Common salt I use as an insecticide and also as a fer-
tilizer, and am satisfied that it proves beneficial in both
ways. Sometimes I sprinkle it broadcast on the surface

8

ae a
114 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

of the beds, always on the bare places, never touching
the mushrooms, and leave it there for a day or two,
then with a fine, gentle sprinkling of water wash it into
the soil. This is to help destroy the anguillule. As a
fertilizer only dissolve four ounces of salt in ten gallons
of water, and with this sprinkle the beds.

A too dry atmosphere can be remedied by sprinkling
the floors, walls, or litter coverings on the beds with
water, not heavily or copiously, but gently and only
enough to wet the surfaces; better moisten in this way
frequently than drench the place at any one time. But
I very much dislike sprinkling the beds in order to
moisten the atmosphere. An experienced man can tell
in a moment whether or not the atmosphere of the mush-
room house is too dry. The air in the mushroom house
should always feel moist, at the same time not raw or
chilly, and the floor and wall surfaces should present a
slow tendency to dry up, and the earth on the beds
should retain its dark, moist appearance. The least
tendency to dryness should at once be relieved by damp-
ing the wall and floor surfaces.

In houses heated by smoke flues, or still more by ordi-
nary stoves and sheet iron pipes, it may be necessary to
dampen the floors and walls once or several times a day
to maintain a sufficiently moist atmosphere, but where
hot water pipes are used and the houses are tight enough
to require but little artificial heat, such frequent sprink-
ling will not be necessary. In the case of beds in un-
heated structures the ordinary atmosphere is generally
moist enough.

Manure Steam for Moistening the Atmosphere.
The late James Barnes, of England, a grand old gar-
dener, writing in the London Garden, Vol. III, page 486,
describes his method of growing mushrooms sixty years
ago, and says: ‘‘In winter a nice moist heat was main-
tained by placing hot stable manure inside, and often

GATHERING AND MARKETING MUSHROOMS. 118

turning it over.” Mr. John G. Gardner, of Jobstown,
N. J., is one of Mr. Barnes’s old pupils and a most suc-
cessful mushroom grower, and he now practices this
same method of moistening the atmosphere by hot ma-
nure steam. See page 21.

In damping the floors of the mushroom house, as well
as the beds, I use a medium-sized watering pot and fine
rose; but in sprinkling the walls and other parts not
readily accessible by the watering pot I use a common
garden syringe.

CHAPTER XVII.
GATHERING AND MARKETING MUSHROOMS.

This is an important point in the cultivation of this
esculent, and should -be attended to with painstaking
discretion.

When mushrooms are fit to pick depends upon several
conditions; for instance, whether for market or for
bome use, and if for the latter, whether they are wanted
for soups or stews. For fresh and attractive appearance
and best appreciation in the market, pick them when
they are plump and fresh and just before the frill con-
necting the cap with the stem breaks apart. The French
mushrooms should always be gathered before the frill
bursts; the English mushrooms also look best when
gathered at this time, but they are admissible if gath-
ered when the frill.begins to burst and before the cap
has opened out flat. If the mushrooms display a ten-
dency to produce long stems pick them somewhat earlier,
soon enough to get them with short shanks, for long
stems are disliked in market; so, too, are dark or dis-
colored or old mushrooms of any sort. Sometimes we

116 MUSHROCMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

may not have enough mushrooms ready at one gathering
to make it worth while sending them to market, and
are tempted to let them stay ungathered until to-morrow,
when they have grown larger and many more shall lave
grown big enough to gather. This should never be
done. It will give an unfavored, unequal lot, some big,
some little, some old, some young. Far better pick every
one the moment it is ready to gather, and keep all safe
in a cool place and covered until some more are ready
for use, and in this way have a uniform appearing lot of
young produce.

Mushrooms for soups should always be gathered be-
fore they burst their gills; indeed, they are mostly
gathered when in a button state; that is, when they
are about the size of marbles. In this condition, when
cooked, they retain their white appearance and do not
discolor the soup. Immature mushrooms are deficient
in flavor.

For home use, for baking, stewing, broiling, or for
cooking in any way in which the tenderness of the flesh
and the delicious aro-
ma of the mushrooms
are desirable in their
finest condition, let
me the mushrooms attain
their full size and
# burst their frills, as
7 seen in Fig. 24, and
gather them before

SS the caps open out flat,
Fic. %. A PERFECT MusHRoom. oF the gills lose any
of their bright pink color. If you let them get old
enough for the gills to turn brown before gathering, the
mushrooms will become leathery in texture, and lose in
flavor and darken sadly in cooking.

In picking, always pull the mushrooms out by the

GATHERING AND MARKETING MUSHROOMS, 117

root, and never, if practicable to avoid it, cut them over
with a knife. In gathering, take hold of the mush-
rooms and give them a sharp but gentle twist, pressing
them down at the same time, and they generaliy part
from the bed without any trouble; then place them in
the baskets, root-end down, so as to keep them perfectly
clean and free from grit. Sometimes when several
mushrooms are joined together in one root-stock and it
is impossible to remove one without disturbing the
whole, cut it over rather than pull it out. In the case
of clumps of young mushrooms, where one can not be
pulled out without displacing some of the others also,
cut it out rather than pull it. There is a knack in pull-
ing mushrooms, easily attained by practice. And even
when they come up in thick bunches and it would ap-
pear impossible to pull out the full-grown ones without
disturbing the others, a practiced hand will give them a
twitch and a pull—they often part from the bed by the
gentlest touch—and get them out without unfastening
any of the multitude of small buttons that may be grow-
ing around them.

The advantages of pulling over cutting are several :
It benefits the bed. If we cut over a mushroom and
leave its stump in the ground, in a few days decay sets
in and a fluffy or spongy substance grows around the
old butt, which destroys many of the little mushrooms
around it, as well as every thread of mycelium that
comes in contact with it. One should be particular to
scoop out these stumps with a knife before this condition
takes place, and go over the beds every few days to fill
up the holes, made in scooping out the old stumps, with
fresh loam.

Pulled mushrooms always keep fresh longer than do
those that have been cut. In the interest of the market
grower they have another advantage. Mushrooms are
bought and sold by weight, and as the stems are always

118 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

retained to the caps all are weighed together; if part of
the stems had been cut off the weight would have been
reduced, and, in like proportion, the price; but if the
stems are retained entire not only are the mushrooms
benefited, but the weight, and with it the price, is also
increased.

Gathering Field or Wild Mushrooms.—Go in
search of them in the morning before the sunshine gets
warm and they become tvo open or old. If you wish to
gather and preserve them in their most perfect condition
pull them up by the ‘‘roots,” carefully remove any soil
from them, and then lay them orderly in the basket, the
root end down; and by spreading a stout sheet of paper
over the layer, another may be arranged above it in the
same way, and so on until the basket is full. But if you
are not so particular and wish them for immediate use,
or for ketchup or drying, the common way of cutting
them off and carrying them home in bulk will answer
well enough.

Marketing Mushrooms.—Most market growers who
live immediately around New York City sell direct, and
deliver their mushrooms to hotels, restaurants, and
fancy fruiterers. But some of them, also most of those
who live at a considerable distance from the city, sell
their mushrooms throrgh commission merchants in New
York; they, in turn, sell in quantities to suit customers.

Mushrooms are sold by the pound, and come into
market in boxes made of strong undressed paper. Some
growers have light wooden boxes made that hold from
one to four pounds of mushrooms each, and these make
convenient and strong packages for shipping by express.
They may be sent singly, or, as is the case with the
paper boxes, several packed together in crates or boxes.
In sending directly to hotels, cheap baskets, holding one
or several pounds—Mr. Gardnet’s baskets hold twelve
pounds—are often used, but in sending to commission

GATHERING AND MARKETING MUSHROOMS. 119

merchants, who have to deal them out in quantities to
suit customers, mushrooms should always be packed in
one, two, three or four pound boxes or baskets, prefer-
ably one pound. Mushrooms are not like potatoes or
apples, that can be handled, remeasured, and repacked
without damaging them. Tach rehandling will certainly
discolor and perhaps break a good many of them, ren.
dering them unsalable, if not worthless.

The utmost care in gathering and packing of mush-
rooms for shipping is of primary importance. Gather
them the moment they are in best condition, no matter
whether or not they are to be packed and shipped the
same day; never let them blow open before gathering
them ; and never cut off short stems. Long stems have
to be shortened, but not until everything is ready to
pack them. With avery soft hair brush dust off any
earth that may stick to the cap of the mushroom, and
with a harder brush or the back of a knife rub the earth
off of the root end of the stem. Then sort the mush-
rooms,—the big ones by themselves, the middle-sized by
themselves, the small or button-sized ones by themselves,
and pack each kind by itself. Pack very firmly without
bruising, and so as to show the pretty caps to the best
advantage. Never pack mushrooms more than two deep
without using plenty of soft paper between the layers,
and never put a heavy bulk of them into one box or bas-
ket. They discolor so easily that, all things considered,
about a pound is enough in a box, if we wish them to
carry safely and retain their bright, fresh skin without
tarnishing.

Mr. Barter, of London, writes me: ‘‘The punnets
we use for marketing our mushrooms in are the same
that are used for strawberries or peaches. These hold
just one pound, but it is becoming more customary now
to have little boxes made holding from three to five
pounds, as these are better for packing in larger cases
for long journeys.”

CHAPTER XVIII.
RE-INVIGORATING OLD BED3.

There is a wide-spread impression among horticultur-
ists that worn out beds which have ceased to bear may,
by means of watering and certain stimulants and warm-
ing up again, be so re-invigorated as to start into full
bearing, and yield a second and a good crop. I have
given this question much painstaking and practical con-
sideration, and have absolutely failed to revive a ‘“‘dead”
bed. I have not been able to do it myself, and any
instance of its having been done has never come under
my observation. This may appear heresy anent the
multitudinous writings to the contrary.

A mushroom bed may keep on bearing in a desultory
way for many months, and now and again show spuris
of increased fertility; but this is no second crop; it is
merely a prolonged dribbling of the first crop. A bed,
by reason of cold or dryness, may, as it were, stand
still or partially stop bearing, and soon after it is re-
moistened, warmed, and otherwise submitted to congen-
ial conditions, will display renewed energy; but this is
no second crop; it is merely a spurt of the first crop
caused by extra favorable cultural conditions. But to
show how vaguely this question which is so much writ-
ten about is regarded, let me quote from a letter to me
by Mr. J. Barter, who grows 21,000 Ibs of mushrooms a
year for the London market: ‘‘You ask me, ‘Do you
ever get a second crop?’ My beds last in bearing, on
an average, each three months, and that I reckon to be
three crops. But whether it be thrze or six months, the

120

RE-INVIGORATING OLD BEDS. 121

weight of mushrooms is about the same. As there is in,
say a ton of manure, only so much mushroom-producing
power, if you force it to produce that weight in two
mouths you are a gainer, as you thereby save in labor;
but when that producing-power is exhausted it will pro-
duce no more mushrooms.”

A spent mushroom bed is one that has been kept in
bearing condition under the most favorable circumstan-
ces at our command, and it has borne a good crop, lasted
some two months in bearing, and now it has stopped
bearing (except in a meagerly, desultory way) because
the spawn or mycelium has exhausted itself and is dead.
Then, without living spawn in the bed how are we to
get mushrooms? Some bits of mycelium are still alive
and yield the desultory few, but every mushroom that
they yield is preying on their vitality, and after a time
they too shall die and the bed be completely barren, for
the mycelium is altogether dead, and without mycelium
mushrooms are an impossibility. We can keep mush-
room mycelium in active growth the year round, and
year after year, providing we never let it bear mush-
rooms. This is done by taking the mycelium, just
before it begins bearing, from one manure bed and plant-
it in another, and so on from bed to bed. At every
fresh transplanting the mycelium exerts itself into re-
newed growth, for it must become a strong plant before
it has strength enough to produce and support a mush-
room. Our utmost efforts have never rendered mycelium
in a mushroom-bearing condition perennial.

CHAPTER XIX.
INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES.

The mushroom grower has his full share of insects to
contend with, and in order to overcome them one should
acquaint himself with them, and know what they are,
what they do, whence they came, and how to destroy
them. One should study the diseases and mishaps of
his crop and endeavor to know their cause. If we know
the cause of failing health in plants, even in mushrooms,
we can probably stop or devise a remedy for the disease
or means to prevent its recurrence, and if we can not
benefit the present subject we are forewarned against
future attacks. But there’is a deal of mysterious trouble
in this direction in mushroom-growing. We are likely
to know something about the depredations committed
by insects or parasitic molds above ground, but I am
sure there is a good deal of mischief going on under
ground of which we know very little, if anything. The
ills to which the mycelium is subject are not at all fully
understood.

‘‘ Maggots.’’—This is the common name among prac-
tical mushroom growers for the larva of a species of fly
(Diptera) which from April on through the warm sum-
mer months renders mushroom-growing unprofitable.
It is unavoidable, and so far has proved invincible. It
attacks the mushrooms in deep cellars, above-ground
houses, greenhouses, or frames, and is often quite com-
mon in early appearing crops in the open fields. We
sometimes read that it does not occur in unheated cel-
lars, but this is a mistake, for in our unheated tunnel

122

INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES. 123

cellars, where the temperature in April does not exceed
55°, naggots always appear about the end of this month.
But it is true that in the case of cool houses and where
the beds are covered over with hay or straw maggots do
not appear as early in the season as they do in warm
houses and open beds. While rigid cleanliness, and care
in keeping the house or cellar closed, no doubt have much
to do in lessening the trouble, I have never been able to
overcome it, and know of no one who has. We simply
stop growing mushrooms in summer.

The maggots or Jarve are about three-sixteenths to
four-sixteenths of an inch long, white with black head,
and appear in all parts of the mushroom, but mostly in
the cap and at the base of the stem, and perforate hither
and thither leaving behind them a disgusting network
of burrows. The tiny buttons, about as soon as they
appear at the surface of the ground, are infested, but
this does not check their growth, and when they become
mushrooms large enough for gathering, unless it be for
a dark looking puncture or tracing now and then visible
on the outside of the caps and stems, there are but few
signs to indicate to the inexperienced eye the presence
of maggots. And this is why maggoty mushrooms are
so often found exposed for sale in summer. But in
large or full-grown mushrooms, and especially the white-
skinned varietics, their presence is visible enough.
Although very repugnant, however, and utterly unfit
for food, maggoty mushrooms are not poisonous.

But all the mushrooms of summer crops are not mag-
goty, only a large proportion of them; the evil begins
in April, and increases as the summer advances, until
August, when it decreases, and in October completely
stops—at least this is my experience.

A solution of salt, saltpeter, or ammonia sprinkled
over the surface of the beds does not, in this case, do
any good as an insecticide, pyrethrum powder diffused

124 MUSHROOMS, HOW TU GROW THEM.

through the atmosphere, and tobacco smoke, have been
ineffectual. Burning a lamp set in a basin of water with
a little kerosene floating on the surface is a most doubtful
operation. Multitudes of flies are destroyed by this lamp
trap, but they are the poor little innocent ‘‘manure
flies,” and the atmosphere of the house is vitiated and
rendered unhealthy for the crop. I have tried these
lamp traps season after season, and never knew of their
doing any good; that is, the maggots seemed just as
numerous in the lamp-trapped cellar as in the other cel-
lar in which no lamp trap had been used.

Regarding this “‘ maggots” question, Mr. J. F. Barter,
of London, writes me: ‘‘During the summer months
the outdodr mushrooms get maggoty before they are big
enough to gather, but of course they can be grown in
cool cellars all the year round. . . . I know of no
sure cure for them (the maggots); of course a slight
sprinkling of salt with manure or mold does prevent, to
a certain extent, ‘but it must be used very carefully.”
Now my experience is, as I have already said, that it is
impossible to grow mushrooms here in summer, even in
cool cellars, without having them more or less maggoty.
As regards the salt and loam preventive, I have tried it
lightly and heavily, but without any apparent good
effect.

Black Spot.—All mushroom growers are familiar
with this disease, but unless it appears in pronounced
form very little notice is taken of it, even by market
men, for we see spotted mushrooms continually exposed
for sale. It appears as dark brown spots, streaks, or
freckles, on the top of the mushroom caps, and increases
in distinctness and breadth with age. Fig. 25. It is
caused by eel worms (Angutllule). These minute
creatures enter the mushrooms when the latter are in
their tiniest pin form and before they emerge from the
ground. Ii a button arises clean it remains clean, if

INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES. 125

diseased it continues to be diseased, and it is a fact that
if one mushroom in a clump has black spot we usually
find that every mushrcom in the clump has it. But
mushrooms growing from the same bit of spawn and that
come up an inch or two away from the spotted ones may
be perfectly clean. Black spot has never occurred with
me in new beds, and seldom in those in vigorous bearing,
but it generally appears in beds that have been in bearing
condition for some weeks or are declining. It docs not
confine itself to any particular
spot or part of the bed, and some-
, times it is much more plentiful
than at others. Between Octo-
ber and March we have very little
} black spot, but as the spring opens

Fic. 2. niceenoe ar. this disease increases. During
FECTED witH Back Spor. the winter season, with careful
attention, perhaps not so much as one per cent will
show black spot, but-as the warm weather sets in the per
centage increases until in May, when as many as twenty
per cent may be affected by it.

Black spot is a disease, however, that can he con-
trolled. Keep everything in and about the mushroom
houses rigidly clean, and as soon as a bed has ceased to
bear a crop worth picking clear it out, lime-wash the
place it occupied, and make up another bed. Carefully
observe that no old loam or manure is allowed to accu-
mulate anywhere, or green scum forms upon the boards,
paths, or walls; boiling water impregnated with alum
poured over the beards, walls, and other scum-covered
surfaces, will kill the eel worms, but it should not he
allowed to touch the mushroom beds that are in bearing
or coming into bearing. Much can be done to protect
the bearing beds from the ravages of this pest: In
gathering the mushrooms remove every vestige of old
stump and fogged-off mushrooms, keep the holes filled

126 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

up with fresh loam, and when the bed has been in bear-
ing condition for a fortnight sprinkle it over with a
solution of salt, and next day topdress with a half-inch
coating of finely sifted fresh loam; firm it to the bed
with the back of the hand, for it can not be pressed on
with a spade on account of the growing mushrooms.

Is black spot unwholesome? I do not think so. I
have never known any ill effects from eating it. The
spotted parts are merely flavorless and tasteless. But it
is a very disgusting disease, and no one, I am sure,
would care to eat eel worms with their mushrooms.
Until quite recently I used to regard the black spot as
the mark of some parasitic fungus, and, acting under
this impression, sent affected mushrooms to Dr. W. G.
Farlow, Prof. of Cryptogamic Botany at Harvard Uni-
versity, for his opinion. He wrote me: ‘‘I find that
the trouble is due to Anguillule, and I find an abun-
dance of these animals in the brown spots.” He advised
me to submit them to an expert in “‘worms.” I then
sent samples to my kind friend, Mr. William Saunders,
of Washington, D. C., who submitted them, for me, to
Dr. Thomas Taylor, the microscopist to the U. S.
Department of Agriculture, and who replied: <‘‘I rec-
ommend that you use a sprinkling of scalding water
thoroughly over the entire surface of the bed, especially
the portion next to the boxing. The scalding water
should be applied before the buttons appear, but not
penetrate more than one-eighth of an inch below the
surface. Anguillule abound wherever decaying vegeta-
ble matter exists. . . . The green alge on the out-
side of flower pots abounds in the anguillule.”

Manure Flies.—This is the name we give to the lit-
tle flies (a species of Sciara) that appear in large num-
bers in spring and summer in our mushroom houses, or,
indeed, in hotbeds or structures of any sort where ma-
nure is used, as well as about the manure heaps in the

INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES. 127

yard. On account of their habits they are regarded
with much ill-favor. They hop about the house and
are continually running over the mushrooms, beds, and
walls, in the most suspicious manner. But, notwith-
standing this, I am inclined to regard them us perfectly
harmless so far as injuring the mushroom crop is con-
cerned, except the fact that they soil the mushrooms
somewhat by their traveling over them with their
muddy feet.

In attempting to get rid of the maggot fly I have
destroyed large numbers of these little innocents, but
without any apparent diminution in their numbers.
Lachaume recommends: ‘‘ These flies may be destroyed
by placing about a number of pans filled with water to
which a few drops of oil of turpentine have been added.
The flies are attracted by the odor and drown themselves.
They may also be caught with a floating light, in which
they will burn their wings and fall into the water.” I
have found that pure buhach powder dusted into the
air or burned ona hot shovel in the mushroom house
has been more effective in destroying these flies than
either the lamp or drowning process.

Slugs.—These are serious pests in the mushrocm
house, especially in above-ground structures, and they
also occur in annoying numbers in cellars. Wherever
hay or straw is used in covering the beds, or there is
much woodwork about the house, slugs appear to be
most numerous. They are very fond of mushrooms and
attack them in all stages, from the tiny button just
emerging from the ground to the fully developed plant.
In the case of the buttons or small mushrooms they
usually eat out a piece on the top or side of the cap, and
as the mushroom advances in growth these wounds
spread open and display an ugly scar or disfigurement.
They also bite into the stems. But in the case of fresh,
full grown mushrooms they seem to have a particular

128 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

liking for the gills, and eat patches out of them here
and there.

“Bullet” or ‘“‘Shot’’ Holes.—My attention was
first called to these by Mr. A. H. Withington, of New
Jersey. They are little holes cut clear through the
mushroom caps, as if perforated by a buckshot, and are
evidently the work of some insect. He had, before then,
submitted some of these perforated mushrooms to Prof.
8. Lockwood, who sent them to Prof. C. V. Riley for his
opinion. Prof. Riley replied that: <‘‘It is quite likely
that the damage was done by some myriapod, possibly a
Julus, or some of its allies. Only observation on the
spot will determine this point.” As I never had any
trouble with myriapods attacking mushrooms and had
seen nothing of this ‘“‘bullet hole” work in our own
beds I was much interested in the question and deter-
mined to look out for it, so I marked off a part of a bed
and left that uncared for. I soon found out the trouble.
These holes are the work of slugs which I have found
and watched in the act of eating out the holes. To find
the slugs at work, one has to take his lantern and go out
and look for them at night. And to find out about
plant parasites—be they fungus, or insect—one has
to let them alone and watch them. Had we kept up
our unsparing hunt for slugs, probably we should not
yet have known what caused these ‘‘bullet holes,” for
no slug would have been left alive long enough to eat a
hole through a mushroom cap.

Slugs must be caught and killed. We can find them
at night by hunting for them by lamp-light ; their slimy
track glistens and reveals their presence. A few small
bits of slate or half rotten boards with a pinch of bran
on them laid here and there about the beds are handy
traps; the slugs gather to eat the bran, hide beneath
the rotten wood, and can then be caught and killed.
Fresh lettuce leaves make a capital trap, but lettuces in

INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES. 129

January or February are about as scarce as mushrooms
themselves. A dressing of salt is distasteful to slugs,
and not injurious to mushrooms. Strong, fresh lime
water may be freely sprinkled over woodwork, pathways,
walls, or elsewhere where slugs might gather and hide
themselves; but this solution should not be used upon
the mushroom beds. Rigid cleanliness, however, about
the mushroom house, and an ever-alert eye for slugs,
should keep them under.

Wood Lice.—These are sure to be more or less
abundant in every mushroom house, even in the cellars.
They crawl] in through doors, ventilators, or other inter-
stices, and are brought in with the manure, and find
shelter about the woodwork, manure, or any bits of dry
litter that may be around. They attack the pinhead
and small button mushrooms by biting out little patches
in their tops and sides; and although these patches are
small to begin with, the blemish spreads as the mush-
room grows, and is an objectionable feature. Trapping
and killing the insects is the chief remedy. Put part of
a half boiled potato (for which no salt had been used)
into a little pasteboard box, and cover the potato with
some very dry swamp moss, lay the box on its side, and
open at the end on the bed. The wood lice will gather
to eat the potato, and remain after feasting because the
dry moss affords them a cozy hiding place. Several of
these little boxes can be used. Go through the house in
the morning, lift the little traps quickly, and shake out
any wood lice that may be in them into a tin pail (an
old lard pail will do), which showd contain a little water
and kerosene. These traps may be used for any length
of time, merely observing to change the potato now and
again to have it in appetizing condition. Hot water or
strong kerosene emulsion may be poured about the wood-
work, walls, and pathways, to destroy the wood lice, but
should not be allowed to touch the beds. Poisoned

9

130 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

sweet apples, potatoes, and parsnips have been recom-
mended as baits for these pests, but I must discourage
using poisons of any sort in the mushroom house. Six
or eight inch square pieces of half rotten very dry boards
laid in pairs, one above the other, also make capital
traps; the wood lice gather there to hide themselves ;
these traps should be examined frequently and the insects
shaken into the pail containing water and kerosene.

Mites.—Two kinds of mites are very common about
mushrooms in spring and summer; one is whitish and
smaller than a “‘red spider” (one of the commonest
insect pests among garden plants), and the other is yel-
lowish and as large as or larger than a ‘‘red spider.”
But I do not think that either of these mites is worth con-
sidering as a mushroom pest. The yellow mite (prob-
ably Lyroglyphus infestans) is extremely common in
strawy litter on the surface of hotbeds, and I have no
doubt finds its way into the mushroom house as manure
vermin rather than a mushroom parasite. They are the
effect and not the cause of injury to the crop. When
mushrooms are wounded or cracked, particularly about
the stem, the crevices often become abundantly inhabited
with these mites, but they do no material damage.

Mice and Rats.—These rodents are very fond of
mushrooms, and where they have access to the beds are
troublesome and destructive. Both the common house
mouse and the white-bellied fence mouse are mushroom
destroyers, but, so far, the nimble but timid field mouse
(among garden, open air, and frame crops generally)
has never yet troubled our mushrooms, but I can
not believe that this immunity is voluntary on its part.
The mice bite a little piece here and there out of the
caps of the young mushrooms, and these dite-marks, as
the mushrooms advance in growth, spread open and
become unsightly disfigurements. In the case of
open mushrooms, however, the mice, like slugs, prefer

INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES. 131

the gills to the fleshy caps. Rats are far more destruc-
tive than mice. Trapping is the only remedy I use, and
would not use poison in the mushroom houses for these
creatures for obvious reasons. But we should make our
houses secure against their inroads.

Toads.—These are recommended as good insect traps
to be used in mushroom houses, but I do not want them
there ; the cure is as bad as the disease. The mushroom
bed is a little paradise for the toad. He gets upon it
and burrows or elbows out a snug little hole for himself
wherever he wishes, and many of them, too, and cares
uothing about whether, in his efforts to make himself
comfortable, he has heaved out the finest clumps of
young mushrooms in the beds.

Fogging Off.—This is one of the commonest ail-
ments peculiar to cultivated mushrooms. It consists in
the softening, shriveling, and perishing of part of the
young mushrooms, which also usually assume a brown-
ish color. These withered mushrooms do not occur
singly here and there over the face of the bed, but in
patches; generally: all or nearly all of the very small
mushrooms in a clump will turn brown and soft, and
there is no help for them; they never will recover their
plumpness. Some writers attribute fogging off to un-
favorable atmospheric conditions,—the temperature may
be too cold, or too hot, or the atmosphere too moist, or
too dry. Iam convinced that fogging off is due to the
destruction of the mycelium threads that supported
these mushrooms; it is a disease of the ‘‘root,” to use
this expression; the ‘‘roots” having been killed, the
tops must necessarily perish. If it were caused by un-
favorable conditions above ground we should expect all
of the crop to be more or less injuriously affected; but
this does not occur; the mushrooms in one clump may
be withered, and contiguous clumps perfectly healthy.

Anything that will kill the spawn or mycelium threads

132 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

will cause fogging off to overtake every little mushroom
that had been attached to these mycelium threads.
Keeping the bed or part of it continuously wet or dry
will cause fogging off, so will drip; watering with very
cold water is also said to cause it, but this I have not
founi to be the case. Unfastening the ground by ab-
tuptly pulling up the large mushrooms will destroy
many of the small mushrooms and pinheads attached to
the same clump; and when large mushrooms push up
through the soil and displace some of the earth, all the
small mushrooms so displaced will probably waste away,
as the threads of mycelium to which they were attached
for support have been severed. A common reason of
fogging off is caused by cutting off the mushrooms in
gathering them and leaving the stumps in the ground;
in a few days’ time these stumps develop a white fluff
or flecky substance, which seems to poison every thread
of mycelium leading to it, and all the mushrooms, pres-
ent and to come, that are attached to this arrested web
of mycelium are affected by the poison of the decaying
old mushroom stump, and fogg off. Any impure matter
in the bed with which the mycelium comes in con-
tact will destroy the spawn and fogg off the young
mushrooms. Lachaume complains about the larve of
two beetles, namely Aphodius fimetarius and Dermestes
tessellatus, which “cause great damage by eating the
spawn, thereby breaking up the reproductive filaments.”
Damage of this sort by these or any other insect vermin
will cause fogging off. But I have not noticed either of
the above beetles or their larve about our beds.
Flock.—This is the worst of all mushroom diseases
and common wherever mushrooms are grown artificially.
It is not a new disease; I have known it for twenty-five
years, and it was as common then as it is now, and prac-
tical gardeners have always called it Flock. I say
“¢ worst of all diseases” because Z know that mushrooms

INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES. 133

affected by it are both unwholesome and indigestible,
and I can readily believe that in aggravated cases they
are poisonous. It is caused by other fungi which infest
the gills and frills of the mushrooms, and render them a
hard, flocky mass; sometimes
the affected mushrooms preserve
their white skin, color, and. nor-
mal form, at other times the cap
becomes more or less distorted.
The illustration, Fig. 26, is
i from life, and a good average
Fic. 26. A FLock-Disgasep Of a flock-infested mushroom.

MUSHROOM. In gathering mushrooms the
growers should insist that every flock-infested mush-
room be discarded, and consumers of mushrooms should
familiarize themselves with this disease so as to know
and reject every mushroom showing a trace of it.

Flock does not affect all the mushrooms in a bed at
avy time, and I do not believe it spreads in the bed, or,
to use the. expression, becomes contagious. If one spot
of mildew appears upon a cucumber, rose, or grape vine
indoors, and is not checked, it soon becomes general all
over the plant or plants, and if one spot of mold occurs
in a propagating bed and is not checked at once it soon
spreads over a large space and destroys every cutting or
seedling within its reach, but this is not the case with
flock in a mushroom bed. If one mushroom is affected
with flock every mushroom produced from that piece of
spawn is affected, but not one mushroom produced from
the pieces of spawn inserted next to this one is affected
by it; not even if the mycelium from the several lumps
of spawn forms an interlacing web. . If the flock is con-
fined to the mushrooms produced from a certain bit of
spawn some may ask, will the other pieces of spawn
broken from the same brick produce flock-infested mush-
rooms? No. I have given this point particular atten-

134 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

tion, have kept the pieces of each brick close together,
and where flock has appeared I have failed to find that
the other pieces of spawn from that brick are more
liable to produce flock-infested mushrooms than are the
pieces of the bricks that, as yet, have not shown any
sign of diseased produce.

How general is this disease? Ina bed say three feet
wide by thirty feet long and of two months’ bearing one
may get as few as five or as many as fifty flocky mush-
rooms; one or two may occur to-day, and we may not
find another for a week or two, when we may get a
whole clump of them, and so on. It is not the large
number of them that makes them dangerous, for they
never appear in quantity. They sometimes appear
among the earliest mushrooms in the bed, but generally
not until after the bed has been in bearing condition for
a week or two.

What conditions are most favorable or unfavorable to
the growth of this disease I do not know; but it is cer-
tainly not caused by debility in the mushroom itself, as
the parasite attacks healthy, robust mushrooms and debil-
itated ones indiscriminately. This flocky condition is
caused by one or more saprophytic and parasitic fungi of
lowly origin, whose various parts are reduced to mere
threads, simple or branched, and divided into tubular cells
at intervals, or else they are long, continuous microscopic
tubes without any partitions, except at those occasional
points where a branch, destined to produce spores, is
given off. Generally two or more species of these thread-
fungi are present at the same time on the mushroom
host, and by the multiplied crossing and interweaving of
their threads and branches produce, through their great
numbers, the whitish, felted mass of ‘‘flock”; while as
individuals the threads are so minute as to be scarcely
or not at all visible to the naked eye. Similar thread-
fungi may often be found in the woods among damp

INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES, 135
leaves, under rotten logs, and on those porous fungi
which project, shelf-like, from the trunks of trees. At
present there is no way known for destroying the “flock,”
except to take up and destroy every clump of mushrooms
attacked by it. Fortunately the disease is not very
serious if proper precautions are observed ; for, in oui
own cellars, where mushrooms have been grown year
after year for the past eleven years, we get but few flocky
mushrooms in any bed’s bearing. The disease is not
more common to-day than it was in any former year.
But we give our cellars a thorough cleaning every
summer. cs

Cleaning the Mushroom Houses.—After the sea
son’s cropping is finished the mushroom houses and cel-
lars.should be thoroughly cleaned. Clear out the old
beds, and _bring outside all the movable floor and shelf
boards,.scrape up every bit of loose litter or dirt in the
place.and throw it ont, broom down the walls and what-
ever boarding is left. Whitewash the walls with hot

‘lime wash, and paint every bit of woodwork liberally
with crude oil or kerosene. This is to destroy anguil-
lute and other insect and fungus parasites. If you wish
to use again the boards brought outside, broom them
over and paint them copiously with kerosene. And if
your cellar or house, has a dirt floor, a heavy sprinkling
of very caustic lime water all over it will:do good in rid-
ding it of vermin.

CHAPTER XX.

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN RIDGES OUT OF DOORS
AROUND LONDON.

In the preface to Kitchen and Market Gardening
(London) is the following :

‘““Mr. W. Falconer and Mr. C. W. Shaw made, in
connection with the London Garden, what we believe
to be the first attempt at long and systematic observa-
tion of the best culture as it is in London market gar-
dens.” This is mentioned to indicate that the writer
speaks on this subject from experience. And although
it is now seventeen years since I became disconnected with
the London market gardens, by revisiting them a few
years ago, and by correspondence and the horticultural
press, I have endeavored to keep informed of all changes
of methods and improvements in culture as practiced
there. At that time Steele, Bagley, Broadbent, Dancer,
Pocock and Myatt were among the largest and best gar-
deners around London, and since then several of these
grand old gentlemen have passed away and their fields
have been cut up and built upon. At that time mush-
rooms were one of the general crops, as were snap beans
or cauliflower, and in their season were planted as a
matter of course. To-day they have become a specialty,
and some gardeners devote their whole energy to mush-
room-growing alone, and make from $2000 to $5000 a
year clear profit from one acre of mushrooms, and that,
too, from ridges in the open field! There is no other
field crop that yields such a large profit. There they
get twenty-four to forty-eight cents a pound for their

136

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN RIDGES, 137

fresh mushrooms, here we get fifty cents to a dollar a
pound for ours. But as mushroom-growing there is
confined to fall, winter and spring, those gardeners who
restrict themselves to mushrooms only devote the sum-
mer months to making mushroom spawn for their own
use, and also for sale.

Mr. John.F. Barter, of Lancefield street, London, the
king of London mushroom growers, writes me under
date of Dec. 10, 1888: ‘‘I employ men for mushroom
bed-making from August to March; then, in order to
keep on the same staff, I get about 10,000 bushels of
brick spawn made up forsale. . . . By the sale of
spawn I make just half of my living.” Now let us see:
10,000 bushels == 160,000 bricks, and each brick weighs
a pound, thus we have 160,000 pounds. At ten cents a
pound (retail price) the total is $16,000; at five cents
a pound (supposed wholesale price) $8000, or at three-
and a half cents a pound (supposed manufacturer’s
price) $5600. :

The manure is obtained from the city stables and
hauled home by the gardeners on their return trips from
market. The manure collected after midsummer is
used for mushrooms, and an effort is made to save the
very best horse manure for this purpose. When enough
has accumulated for a bed the manure is turned and
well shaken, removing only the rougher part of the
straw, and thrown into a large pyramidal pile to heat ;
this shape is adopted as being better than the flat form
for keeping out rain. In three or four days the manure
is again turned, shaken out and piled up as before; after
this it is turned every second day, unless it rains, until
it has been turned six or seven times in all. It should
then be ready for making into ridges.

The site for the beds should be a warm, well-sheltered
piece of ground, either in the open field or orchard ,
much pains should be exercised to protect it from cold

138 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

winds. Although a great many mushroom ridges are
made under the partial shade of apple and pear trees, I
always preferred making them in the open ground.
The land should be dry and of a slightly elevated or
sloping nature, so that no pools of water can possibly
collect on the surface. Having the ground cleared, lev-
eled, and ready, mark it off into strips two feet: wide
and six feet wide alternately. The two feet wide space
is for the mushroom bed, the six feet wide one for the
space between the beds; but after the ridges are built,
earthed over and covered with straw, they are almost
six feet wide at the base. The common sizes of ridges
are two feet wide by two feet high, and two and one-half
feet wide by two and one-half feet high, and taper to
six or eight inches wide at top.

The manure being ready and the site for the beds
lined: off, the manure is carted to the place and wheeled
upon the beds. In making the bed shake ont the
manure well and evenly to cause it to hold together,
tamp it with the back of the fork as you go along, and
two or three times before the ridges are completed walk
upon and tread the manure down solidly with the feet,
and trim down the sides to turn the rain water. Two
days after the bed is made up some holes should be
bored from the top to nearly the bottom with a small
iron bar to let the heat off and prevent the inside of the
bed from becoming too dry. Make them about nine
inches apart all along the center of the bed. The old
gardeners did not use the crowbar. They were very par-
ticular not to build their ridges before the chances of
overheating were considered past; but notwithstanding
all their care some of their beds would get overwarm,
when, without a moment’s hesitation, they tossed them
over, part to the right and part to the left, and left
the manure thus exposed for a day or two to cool, and
then make up the beds again on the same site.

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN RIDGES. 139

Brick spawn is always used. Some of those who
make a specialty of mushrooms also make spawn for
sale as well as for their own use; but the majority of
the gardeners prefer to buy rather than make their own
spawn.

When the heat has fullen to between 80° ard 90° the
ridges are spawned, the pieces inserted in three rows
along each side, leaving about nine inches between the
pieces. A dibber should not be used on any account.
The spawn is put in tightly with the hand and the ma-
nure pressed down. It should be put in level with the
face of the bed, so that the mold may just touch it when
the bed is cased. In the event of cold or wet weather,
just as soon as the beds are spawned a slight covering of
rank litter is laid over them. After a few days this is
removed and the beds are molded over with mold from
ground to which manure has not been applied for some
time. But the general market gardeners do not make
this distinction; they use the earth from between the
ridges, which has been manured regularly every year for
a couple of hundred years or more. The mold is put
on evenly with the spade and is about two inches thick
at the base of the ridge and one inch thick at top, and
well firmed by beating with the back of the spade;
indeed, the ridges are now commonly watered through
a water-pot rose, again beaten very firmly and the sur-
face left smooth and even. This smooth surface readily
sheds rain water, but I question if it has any advantage
over a well-firmed unglazed surface. After molding the
beds are covered with litter, that is, the rankest straw
that had been shaken out of the manure, to a depth of
four, six, eight, or ten inches, according to the state of
the bed and weather; if the bed is inclined to be cool
or if the weather is cold, thicken the covering.

Drenching or long drizzling rains are more injurious
to the beds than is cold, and in order to ward them off

140 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

old Russia mats and any other sort of cloth or carpet
covering obtainable is laid over the litter on the beds
and weighted down with poles, boards, stenes, or any-
thing else that is convenient. Do not disturb this cov-
ering for about four weeks, and then on a dry day strip
it off and shake up the litter loosely so as to dry it. If
there is any white mold on the surface of the soil take a

FIG. 27. THE COVERED RIDGES.

handful of straw and rub it off. If the bed is rather
cold put a layer of clean, dry hay next the bed, and on
top of this replace the littery covering.

The first beds are made in August, and one or more
every month after till March, just as time, convenience
and material permit. Summer beds are not attempted
unless in exceptional cases. The bulk of the beds are
generally put in in September and October. In early
fall, also in spring, beds yield mushrooms in about six
weeks after spawning ; in winter they take eight or nine
weeks or more, much depending on the weather.

In cold weather the mushroums are gathered at noon-
day; if the weather is windy and it is possible to post-

GROWING MUSHROOMS IN RIDGES. 141

pone gathering for another day this is done, as the litter
can not be replaced satisfactorily in windy weather. In
gathering the mushrooms one man carefully pulls the
straw down from the top of the bed, rolling it toward
him ; another gathers the mushrooms (pulling them out
by the roots, never cutting them) into baskets, and a
third man covers up the bed. In this way the three
men go up one side of the ridge and down the other,
and the work is done expeditiously and well, without
exposing any part of the bed more than a minute or two
ata time. It is necessary that the uncovering be done
by rolling the straw down from the top of the ridge; if
it were rolled up the covering on the other side of the
ridge would be sure to slip down a little, and break off
many small mushrooms. The mushrooms as gathered
are of three grades; the large or wide-spread ones are
called ‘‘broilers,” the full-sized ones whose neck frill is
merely broken about half an inch wide are ‘‘ cups,” and
the small white ones whose frills are not broken at all are
termed ‘‘buttons.” All of these are kept separate.
They are marketed in different ways, but the growers
who make mushrooms a specialty assort and pack them
in chip baskets, boxes, or otherwise, as the metropolitan
and provincial markets demand or suggest. Mr. John
F. Barter, writing to me from London, says: ‘‘As to
punnetts, we use the same as for strawberries or peaches”
(the abundance of peaches we have in America is un-
known over there), ‘‘ they hold just one pound.” But it is
getting more general now to have little boxes made to
hold say three to five pounds each ; these are better for
packing in larger cases for long journeys.”

The first cutting is a light one. After this the bed is
cut twice a week for three weeks in mild weather, or
once a week in inclement weather. The last two or
three pickings are thin and only secured once a week.
Altogether ten or eleven good pickings are gathered from
each bed.

142 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

I never knew of a single instance in which any attempt
was made to renovate an old or worn-out bed. But
when the beds become so dry as to need watering a small
handful of salt is dissolved in a large pailful of water
and with this solution the beds are freely watered over
the straw covering, but never, to my knowledge, under it.

My old friends, George Steele and Mr. Bagley, of
Fulham Fields, used to run part of their beds east and
west, not only for convenience sake so far as the beds
themselves were concerned, but with the view of growing
early tomatoes against the south side of these beds in
summer, and here they got their finest and earliest crops,
for the London gardeners can not grow tomatoes out of
doors in the open fields as we can in America. Other
gardeners clear away the manure for use elsewhere in
their fields, and as it is so well rotted it is in capital
condition for cauliflower, lettuces, snap beans, and other
crops. But as the mushroom growers who restrict them-
selves entirely to mushrooms, and who, after the mush-
room beds have finished bearing, have no further use for
the manure in the spent beds, are always able to dispose
of it at one-half the cost price. It is excellent for gar-
den crops and as a topdressing for lawns, on account of
its fineness and freedom from all rubbish as sticks, stones,
old bottles, old shoes, and the like, is in much demand. .

CHAPTER XXI.
MUSHROOM GROWING IN THE PARIS CAVES.

In caves and subterranean passages underneath the
city of Paris and its environs, thousands of tons of mush-
rooms are artificially produced every year. These under-
ground caves and tunnels are abandoned quarries from
which white building stone and plaster have been exca-
vated, and as the veins of stone permeated through the
bowels of the earth, 40 to 125 feet deep, so were they
quarried, and the blocks brought to the surface through
vertical shafts. It is these tunnels, varying in height
and width as the veins of stone varied, that are now used
for mushroom-growing. M. Lachaume, in his book,
The Cave Mushroom, tells us: ‘In the Department of
the Seine there are 3000 quarries ; those which have been
abandoned and which are situated close to Paris at
Montrouge, Bagneux, Vaugirard, Méry, Chatillon, Vitry,
Honilles, and St. Denis, are used by the 250 mushroom-
growers of the Department. There are several of these
quarries with horizontal galleries driven into the calca-
reous rock from the level of the road, which are mostly
large enough to accommodate a good sized cart, but the
majority can only be entered, like many coal mines, by
vertical shafts 100 to 125 feet deep, down which every-
thing has to pass. The laborers climb up and down a
ladder, and the fresh manure is shoveled down the shaft
from above, the waste stuff and mushrooms being hauled
up in baskets from beneath by means of a windlass.”

The manure used is obtained from the Paris stables
and furnished by contractors, with whom the mushroom

143

144 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

growers make special bargains because they are very par-
ticular about the kind and quality of the manure they
use. Some of these growers use as much as 2000 to
3500 tons of manure each a year for their mushroom
beds. To the caves in the immediate neighborhood of
Paris the manure is hauled out in carts, but to Méry
and other places too far distant to be within easy carting
distance it is sent by rail. The mushroom growers con-
sider that the manure from animals that are worked
hard and abundantly fed on dry, good food is the best ;
the droppings from these are always dry and rich in
ammonia, nitrogen and phosphates. The manure from
entire horses that are worked hard they regard as the
best, and, next in value, that from mules. The manure
from horses kept for pleasure, such as carriage and rid-
ing horses, is regarded as poor, notwithstanding the
high feeding of these animals, and the manure from
horses fed on grass or roots, also that of cows, as worth-
less. Stress is laid on the importance of having a good
deal of urine-soaked straw in the manure, and this is
another reason why manure from draught horses is pre-
ferred to that from animals kept for pleasure, as the
bedding of the former is not apt to be kept so clean as
that in aristocratic stables.

The preparation of the manure is conducted near the
mouth of the caves or shafts on a level, dry piece of
ground, and altogether out of doors. As soon as suffi-
cient manure for a pile is obtained it is forked over,
thoroughly shaken up and intermixed, divested of all
extraneous matter such as sticks, stones, bottles, scrap
iron, old shoes, and the like we find in city stable ma-
nure, and any dry straw is moistened with water. It is
then squared off into a heap forty inches high and trod-
den down to thirty inches high. In this state it is left
for about six days, when it is turned, shaken up loosely,
the ontside turned to the inside, and all dry parts

MUSHROOM GROWING IN THE PARIS CAVES. 145

watered ; the same shallow square form is retained, and
it is again trodden down firm. Jn about six days more
it is again turned, shaken up, watered, squared off, and
trodden as before. In about three days after this it
should be fit for use and may be turned, shaken up
loosely, and dumped down the shaft into the cave and
carried to the spot where the beds are to be formed. Of
course these operations must be modified according to
circumstances and the condition of the manure.

In making the beds the ground is first marked off.
The first bed is made alongside of the wall, and rounded
to the front; the other beds run parallel with this and
may be straight, crooked, or wavy, as the interior of the
cave may suggest. The beds are all ridge-shaped, eight-
een to twenty inches wide at the base, eighteen to twenty
inches high in the middle, six inches wide at top, and
the sides sloping. Pathways twelve inches wide run
between the beds. The workmen build the beds by
piece-work and receivé one-half cent per running foot.
A good workman can make 240 feet a day (Lachaume).
The beds are built neatly and firmly and with much
nicety as regards size and proportions. But the work-
men do not use a fork or any other tool in the construc-
tion of the beds; they lift, shake up, spread and build
the manure with their naked hands and pack it firm
with their knees.

The spawn is obtained from the working beds and is

what the mushroom growers there call ‘‘virgin” spawn,
though not at all what we know by that term. Asa

succession of beds is kept up all the year round it is an
easy matter for the growers to get their spawn at any
time. The best time to get the spawn is when the
young musbrooms are first appearing. A bed or part of
a bed in capital working order is selected and broken up
and the cakes of manure thoroughly matted up with the
active mycelium are selected for spawning the fresh beds.
10

146 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

It is asserted that from this active spawn crops of mush-
Tooms appear in twenty days’ less time than if dry spawn
were used.

The French spawn is used. Somewhere between the
seventh and fourteenth day after making the bed it will
be in condition for spawning. Break the spawn into
pieces between two and three inches long, two inches
wide, and three-fourths of an inch thick, and insert
these pieces in two rows along the sides of the ridges ;
the first row eight inches above the ground, the second
row eight inches above the first, and the pieces put in
quincunx fashion eight inches apart in the row. The
manure is firmly packed in upon the spawn, the surface
left smooth and even and without being further disturbed
until earthing time.

Much stress is laid upon stratifying the spawn before
using, when dry spawn is employed. About eight days
before a bed is to be spawned the dry spawn is spread
out in a row on the floor of the cave or cellar so that it
may absorb moisture and the mycelium begin to run.
At spawning time these cakes or flakes are broken up
and used in the ordinary way, and, it is claimed, with a
week’s difference in favor of the early appearing of the
mushrooms. But no more spawn than is necessary for
immediate use should be stratified, for it will not bear
being dried and damped again.

The chips and powder of the stone which has been
taken out of the quarry and which can be had in abun-
dance on the floor of the quarry or on the surface of the
ground around the shaft, are sifted, and the finer part
saved and mixed with earth in the proportion of three
parts of stone dust to one of earth, and with this the beds
are molded over. The powdered stone is strongly im-
pregnated with salts, so advantageous to the mushrooms.

In seven to nine days after spawning, the beds are
ready for earthing over. This depends upon the condi-

MUSHROOM GROWING IN THE PARIS CAVES. 147

tion of the spawn and how well it has run in the manure.
Before being earthed over the outside surface of the beds
should be covered with white filaments radiating in all
dircctions which give to the beds a bluish appearance.
When the bed is in the proper state for being covered
with earth the mold is lud on equally and firmly over
the surface about three-fourths of an inch deep. It is
then thoroughly watered through a fine-rosed watering pot.
and allowed to settle until the next day, when it is
beaten solid by the back of a wooden shovel. ‘The bed
now necds no further care until the young mushrooms
appear, except a light occasional watering should it
get dry.

In spacious, high-roofed caves the mean temperature
is about 52° F., while in narrow, low-roofed ones it is

Big, 28. IN THE MUsHRoomM CAVES OF PARIS.

about 68°. Of course this makes a wide difference in
the time of hearing and duration of the beds made in
the different caves; those in the warm caves come into
bearing sooner and stop bearing quicker than do those
in the high-rovfed caves. On an average the first mush-

148 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

rooms appear in about forty days after the beds are
spawned, and the beds continue bearing for forty or
sixty days, but toward the end of that time the yield
diminishes very rapidly.

They are gathered once a day, usually about midnight,
so that they may reach the Paris market early in the
morning. In size the mushrooms range from three-
fourths to one and five-eighths inches in diameter of top,
and are pure white in color, The workmen always
gather the mushrooms by plucking them out by the
roots, and never by cutting them; the gatherers have
two baskets, carried knapsack fachion on their back ;
one is to receive the mushrooms as they are picked, the
other contains mold with which to fill in the little holes
made by pulling the mushrooms out of the bed. In
some caves one man gathers the mushrooms and leaves
them in little piles on the bed as he goes along, a woman
comes after him and places them in a basket, and a man
follows her and fills up the holes with earth. Before
bringing the mushrooms up out of the caves they are
covered over with acloth to avoid contact with the outer
air, which is apt to turn them brown. They are then
placed in baskets that contain twenty-three to twenty-five
pounds and sent to market, where they are sold at auc-
tion as they arrive. Or they may be sent to preserved-
vegetable manufacturers, who contract for them at an
all round price.

Proper ventilation is regarded as being of great impor-
tance, not only for the sake of the workmen, but also for
the mushrooms, which will not thrive in an impure
atmosphere. Ventilation is afforded by means of nar-
row shafts surmounted by tall wooden chimneys whose
upper ends are cut at an angle so that the beveled side
faces north. In order to avoid sudden changes of tem-
perature and strong draughts, fires, trap doors, and
other means employed in assisting the ventilation of coal

Fic. 23. GATHERING MUSHROOMS IN THE PARts CAVES FOR MARKET.

150 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

mines are adopted. To stop strong draughts, too, in
the passages, tall, straw-thatched hurdles are set up.
In narrow caves the breath of the workmen, the gases
given off by fermentation, and the products of combus-
tion of the lamps would soon so vitiate the atmosphere
as to render the caves uninhabitable were they not prop-
erly ventilated. Indeed, it frequently occurs that caves
in which mushrooms have been grown continuously for
some years have to be abandoned for a year or two be-
cause the crop has ceased to prosper in them. But after
they have been thoroughly cleared of all beds and the
surface soil that would have been likely to be touched
or affected by the manure, and ventilated and rested for
a year or two, mushrooms can again be grown in them
successfully.

“CHAPTER XXII.
COOKING MUSHEOOMS.

Fresh mushrooms, well cooked and well served, are
one of the most delicious of all vegetables. If we grow
our own mushrooms we can gather them in their finest
form, cook them as we please, and enjoy them in their
most delightful condition. If we are dependent upon
the fields we should be careful to gather only such mush-
rooms as are young, plump, and fresh, and reject all
that are old or discolored, or betray any signs of the
presence of disease or insects. And in the case of store
mushrooms, that is, the ones we get at the fruiterer’s or
other provision store, we should examine them critically
before using them to see that they are perfectly free
from “flock,” ‘‘black spot,” ‘‘ maggots,” or other ail-
ment, and discard all that have any symptoms of disease.

COOKING MUSHROOMS. 151

The small, short-stemmed, white-skinned mushrooms
offered for sale are of the variety known as French
mushrooms, and on account of their white appearance
are preferred by many; the longer-stemmed, broader-
headed, and darker-colored kind that we also find offered
for sale is what is known as the English mushroom.
The French mushrooms are the most attractive in ap-
pearance and preferred in the market, but the English
variety is the best flavored and generally the most liked
for home use.

As soon as the frill around the neck breaks apart the
mushroom is fit to gather; keeping it longer may add
to its size a little, but surely will detract from its ten-
derness. The gills of the mushrooms will retain their
pink tinge for a day after the frill breaks open, but they
soon grow browner and blacker, until in a few days they
are unfit for food. ‘In gathering, the mushrooms should
be pulled and never cut, and kept in this way until
ready to prepare them for cooking. By retaining the
stem urcut the mushroom holds its freshness and plump-
ness much longer than it would were the stems removed.
Keep them in a cool, dark place, and in an earthenware
vessel with a cover or a thick, damp cloth thrown over
it; this will preserve their plumpness. If the frill is
broken wide apart when the mushrooms are gathered,
the caps are apt to open out flat in a day or two, and
the gills darken and spread their spores, just as if the
mushrooms were still unsevered from the ground.

Carefully inspect the mushrooms before cooking them.
If the gills are black and the mushrooms are too old do
not use them; if the cap is perforated by insects discard
it, as it is very likely there are maggots inside; or if
there are dark brown spots (‘‘black spot”) on the top
of the caps throw the mushrooms away. Old mush-
rooms are tough, ill-looking, bad-tasting and indigesti-
ble, and those infested by insects, although not poison-

152 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

ous, are very repugnant, and should not be used. But
the dangerous mushroom is the one affected by ‘‘ Flock.”
Mushrooms should be gathered free from grit; if at
all gritty they require washing, which spoils them. All
large mushrooms should be peeled before they are cooked ;
the skin of the cap parts freely from the flesh, but the
skin of the stem must be rubbed or scraped off. The
gills should not be removed as they are the most deli-
cate meat of the mushroom, but if the mushrooms are
old and intended for soup the gills should be scraped
out with the view of getting rid of their darkening
influence in the soup. In the case of small button
mushrooms, which can not be readily skinned, they
should be rubbed over with a soft cloth dipped in vin-
egar, so as to remove the outer part of the skin. While
the stems may be retained with the buttons, they should
always be removed from the full-grown mushrooms.
Mushrooms should always be served hot, and they
should be eaten as soon as cooked. In the case of baked
mushrooms and others prepared in a somewhat similar
way they should be covered in the oven by an inverted
dish, soup plate, basin, or the like, and if possible brought
to the table in this way and without the cover removed.
Set the tin upon a mat or cold plate upon the table, then
uncover and serve on hot plates. By this means the
delicious aroma is preserved.
Baked Mushrooms.—Peel and stem the mushrooms,
rub and sprinkle a little salt on the gills, and lay the
mushrooms, gills up, on a shallow baking tin and put a
small piece of butter on each mushroom. Place an
inverted saucer or deep plate over them im the tin, and
put them into a brisk oven for about twenty minutes.
Then take them out and serve upon a hot plate, without
spilling any of the juice that has collected in the middle
of each mushroom. Send to table and eat at once.
This is the common way of cooking mashrooms, and by

COOKING MUSHROOMS. 153

it is secured the true mushroom aroma and taste in their
perfection.

Stewed Mushrooms.—Peel and stem the mush-
rooms. ‘l'ake an enameled saucepan, put a lump of
butter in it and melt it, then put in the mushrooms,
and season with salt and pepper and a small piece of
pounded mace (if you like it), then cover the saucepan
tightly and stew the mushrooms gently until they are
tender, which will be in about half an hour. Have
ready some toast, either dry or fried in butter, as pre-
ferred ; spread out upon a hot dish, place the mush-
rooms upon the toast, with the gills uppermost, pour
the juice over them, and serve hot. Button mushrooms
are the ones usually selected for stewing, but while
nicer and whiter they are not so finely flavored as the
full sized ones.

Another way of preparing stewed mushrooms is to
stem and peel them; dip in water containing lemon
juice (this is to prevent their becoming dark-colored in
cooking, or giving a dark color to the stew), and drain
them dry. Put them into a stewpan, with a good-sized
lump of butter and some nice gravy, and let them stew
for about ten minutes. Take a little stock or cream,
beat up some flour in it quite smooth, and add a little
lemon juice and grated nutmeg. Add this to the mush-
rooms and cook briskly for about ten minutes longer, or
until tender.

Soyer’s Breakfast Mushrooms.—Place some fresh-
ly-made toast, divided, on a dish, and put the mush-
rooms, stemmed and peeled, gills upward upon it; add
a little pepper and salt and put a small bit of butter in
the middle of each mushroom. Pour a teaspoonful of
cream over each, and add one clove for the whole dish.
Put an inverted basin over the whole. Bake for twenty
or twenty-five minutes, and do not remove the basin
until the dish is brought to the table, so as to preserve
the grateful aroma. A delightful dish.

154 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

Mushrooms 4 la Créme.—Peel and stem the mush-
rooms, roll a lump of butter in flour and put it into the
saucepan, then add the mushrooms and some salt, white
pepper, a little sugar and finely chopped parsley. Stew
for ten minutes. Take the yolks of two eggs beaten up
with two large spoonfuls of cream, and add the mixture
gradually to the stew; cook for a few minutes longer,
and serve hot. This is a delicious dish, but the fine
mushroom flavor is not as pronounced in it as it is in
the plain bake or stew.

Curried Mushrooms.—Peel and stem a pound of
mushrooms, sprinkle with salt, add a little butter, and
stew gently for fifteen or twenty minutes in a little good
stock or gravy. Then add four tablespoonfuls of cream
and one teaspoonful of good curry powder previously
well mixed with two teaspoonsfuls of wheat flour. Mix
carefully and cook for five or ten minutes longer, and
serve on hot toast on hot plates. A capital dish much
enjoyed by those’ who like curry.

Broiled Mushrooms.—Select large, open, fresh
mushrooms, stem and peel them. Put them on the
gridiron, stem side down, over a bright but not very hot
fire, and cook for three minutes. Then turn them and
put asmall piece of butter in the middle of each, and
broil for about ten minutes longer. Put them in hot
plates, gills upward, and place another small piece of
butter on each mushroom, together with a little pepper
and salt, and flavor with lemon juice or Chili vinegar,
and put them into the oven for a minute or two. Then
send them to table.

Mushroom Soup.—Take a quantity of fresh young
mushrooms, and peel and stem them. Stew them with
a little butter, pepper and salt, and some good stock,
till tender; take them out and chop them up quite
small; prepare a good stock, as for any other soup, and
add it to the mushrooms and the liquor they have been

COOKING MUSHROOKS. 155

stewed in. Boil all together, and serve. If white soup
is required use white button mushrooms and a good veal
stock, adding a spoonful of cream or a little milk as the
color may require. ‘This is a nice soup and tastes good.
If the mushrooms are very young they have but little
flavor; if they are full grown they darken the soup,
and if they are brown in the gills when used the soup
will be disagreeably dark. If, after preparing, but be-
fore cooking the mushrooms, you pour some boiling
water over them and into this drop a little vinegar or
lemon juice, then drain them off through a colander,
you can prevent, to a great extent, their darkening influ-
ence on the soup, but always at the expense of their
flavor.

Mushroom Stems.—The stems of young, fresh mush-
rooms are excellent to eat, but those of old or stale
mushrooms are unfit for food. In the case of plump,
fresh, full-sized mushrooms, the upper part of the stem,
that is, the portion between the frill and the socket in
the cap, is used, but the portion below the frill, that is,
the “‘root” end, is discarded. Any part of the stem
that is discolored or tough or woody should be rejected,
and only the portion that is succulent and brittle and of
a clean white color at any time used. The stems are
nearly always retained in ‘‘button” mushrooms when
they are cooked, and the upper or succulent parts of the
stems of plump, fresh, full-grown mushrooms are often
cooked along with the caps, but when cooking full-grown
mushrooms we prefer, in all cases, to completely remove
the stems from the mushrooms, and cook both separately.
The stems are not so tender or deliciously flavored as
are the caps, but are excellent for ketchup, or flavoring,
or a sauce for eating with boiled fowl. In cooking the
stems they should be peeled by scraping, for they can
not be skinned like the caps.

Potted Mushrooms.—Select nice button or unopen

156 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

mushrooms, and to a quart of these add three ounces of
fresh butter, and stew gently in an enameled saucepan,
shaking them frequently to prevent burning. After a
few minutes dust a little finely powdered salt, a little
spice, and a few grains of cayenne over them, and stew
until tender. When cooked turn them into a colander
standing in a basin, and leave them there until cold ;
then press them into small potting-jars, and fill up the
jars with warm clarified butter, and cover with paper
tied down and brushed over with melted suet to exclude
the air. Keep in a cool, dry place. ‘The gravy should
be retained for flavoring other gravies, sauces, etc.

Gilbert’s Breakfast Mushrooms. — Get half
grown mushrooms, peel them and lay them, gills-side
upward, on a plate; put to each a small piece of butter,
but only one layer thick; pepper and salt to taste; add
two tablespoonfuls of ketchup and one of water; press
round the rim of the plate a strip of paste, get another
plate of the same size pressed firmly in the paste; put
the whole in a brisk oven for twenty-five minutes. The
top plate should be left on until served.

Baked Mushrooms.—(A breakfast, luncheon, or
supper dish.) Ingredients: Sixteen or twenty mush-
room flaps, butter, pepper to taste. Mode. For this
mode of cooking the mushroom flaps are better than the
buttons, and should not be too large. Cut off a portion
of stalk, peel the top, and wipe the mushrooms carefully
with a piece of flannel and a little fine salt. Pnt them
into a tin baking dish, with a very small piece of butter
placed on each mushroom ; sprinkle over a little pepper,
and let them bake for about twenty minutes, or longer
should the mushrooms be very large. Have ready a
very hot dish, pile the mushrooms high in the center,
pour the gravy round, and send them to table quickly
on very hot plates.

Broiled Mushrooms.—(A breakfast, luncheon, or

COOKING MUSHROOMS. 167

supper dish.) Ingredients: Mushrooms, pepper and
salt to taste, butter, lemon juice. Mode. Cleanse the
mushrooms by wiping them with a piece of flannel and
a little salt ; cut off a portion of the stalk and peel the
tops ; broil them over » clear fire, turning them once,
and arrange them on a very hot. dish. Put a small piece
of butter on each mushroom, season with pepper and
salt and squeeze over them a few drops of lemon juice.
Place the dish before the fire, and when the butter is
melted serve very hot and quickly. Moderate sized flaps
are better suited to this mode of cooking than the buf-
tons; the latter are better in stews.

Mushrooms 4 la Casse, Tout. — Ingredients :
Mushrooms, toast, two ounces of butter, pepper and
salt. Mode. Cut a round of bread one-half an inch
thick, and toast it nicely ; butter both sides and place it
in a clean baking sheet or tin; cleanse the mushrooms
as in preceding recipe, and place them on the toast, head
downwards, lightly pepper and salt them, and place a
piece of butter the size of a nut on each mushroom;
cover them with a finger glass and let them cook close
to the fire for ten or twelve minutes. Slip the toast
into a hot dish, but do not remove the glass cover until
they are on the table. All the aroma and flavor of the
mushrooms are preserved by this method. The name
of this excellent recipe need not deter the careful house-
keeper from trying it. With moderate care the glass
cover will not crack. In winter it should be rinsed in
warm water before using.

Stewed Mushrooms.—Ingredients. One pint mush-
toom buttons, three ounces of fresh butter, white pepper
and salt to taste, lemon juice, one teaspoonful of flour,
cream or milk, one-fourth teaspoonfil of grated nutmeg.
Mode. Cut off the ends of the stalks and pare neatly.a
pint of mushroom buttons; put them into a basin of
water with a little lemon juice as they are done. When

158 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

all are prepared take them from the water with the
hands, to avoid the sediment, and put them into a stew-
pan with the fresh butter, white pepper, sult, and the
juice of one-half a lemon; cover the pan closely and let
the mushrooms stew gently from twenty to twenty-five
minutes, then thicken the butter with the above propor-
tion of flour, add gradually sufficient cream, or cream
and milk, to make the sauce of a proper consistency,
and putin the grated nutmeg. If the mushrooms are
not perfectly tender stew them for five minutes longer,
Temove every particle of butter which may be floating on
the top, and serve.

Broiled Beefsteak and Mushrooms.—Ingredi-
ents: Two or three dozen small button mushrooms,
one ounce of butter, salt and cayenne to taste, one table-
spoonful of mushroom ketchup. Mode. Wipe the
mushrooms free from grit with a piece of flannel, and
salt; put them in a stewpan with the butter, seasoning,
and ketchup; stir over the fire until the mushrooms
are quite done. Have the steak nicely broiled, and pour
over. The above is very good with either broiled or
stewed steak.

To Preserve Mushrooms.—Ingredients: To each
quart of mushrooms allow three ounces of butter, pepper
and salt to taste, the juice of one lemon, clarified butter.
Mode. Peel the mushrooms, put them into cold water,
with a little lemon juice; take them out and dry them
very carefully in a cloth. Put the butter into a stewpan
capable of holding the mushrooms; when it is melted
add the mushrooms, lemon juice, and a seasoning of
pepper and salt; draw them down over a slow fire, and
let them remain until their liquor is boiled away and
they have become quite dry, but be careful in not allow-
ing them to stick to the bottom of the stewpan. When
done put them into pots and pour over the top clarified
butter. If wanted for immediate use they will keep

COOKING MUSHROOMS. 159

good a few days without being covered over. To re-
warm them put the mushrooms into a stewpan, strain
the butter from them, and they will be ready for use.

Mushroom Powder.—(A valuable addition to
sauces and gravies when fresh mushrooms are not ob-
tdinable.) Ingredients: One-half peck of large mush-
rooms, two onions, twelve cloves, one-fourth ounce of
pounded mace, two teaspoonfuls of white pepper. Mode.
Peel the mushrooms, wipe them perfectly free from grit
and dirt, remove the black fur, and reject all those that
are at all worm-eaten; put them into a stewpan with
the above ingredients, but without water; shake them
over 4 clear fire till all the liquor is dried up, and be
careful not to let them burn; arrange them on tins and
dry them in a slow oven; pound them to a fine powder,
which put into small dry bottles; cork well, seal the
corks, and keep it in a dry place. In using this powder,
add it to the gravy just before serving, when it will re-
quire one boil up. The flavor imparted by this means
to the gravy ought to be exceedingly good. This should
be made in September, or at the beginning of October,
and if the mushroom powder bottle in which it is stored
away is not perfectly dry it will speedily deteriorate.

Mushroom Powder.—This is for use as a condi-
ment. The finest full-grown mushrooms—which are
the best flavored—should be selected and prepared for
drying, and dried as stated under the heading of ‘“‘ Dried
Mushrooms,” except that it is better to dry them in an
oven or drying machine so that they may be dried
quickly and become brittle. Grate or otherwise reduce
them to a fine powder, and preserve this in tightly-
corked bottles.

To Dry Mushrooms.—Wipe them clean, take away
the brown part and peel off the skin ; lay them on sheets
of paper to dry, in a cool oven, when they will shrivel
considerably. Keep them in paper bags, which hang in

160 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

a dry place. When wanted for use put them into cold
gravy, bring them gradually to simmer, and it will be
found that they will regain nearly their usual size.

Dried Mushrooms.—In the flush of the pasture-
mushroom season gather a large number of mushrooms
of all sizes and see that they are thoroughly clean ; re-
move and discard the stems and peel the caps. Stir
them around for a few minutes in boiling water to
which a jittle lemon juice or vinegar has been added to
prevent them from turning dark colored. Some people
use plain cold water, or cold water with lemun juice or
vinegar in it. But never use salt in preparing mush-
rooms for drying, or else the salted mushrooms will
absorb moisture from the atmosphere and spoil. Take
the mushrooms out of the water and drain them ona
sieve, then string them and hang them up to dry and
season in an open, airy shed, as one would strings of dry-
ing fruit. They may also be dried in a drying machine
or oven as one would do with apples or peaches. They
are used as a substitute for fresh mushrooms when the
latter can not be obtained. In preparing dried mush-
rooms for use steep them in tepid water or milk until
they become quite soft and plump, then drain them dry
and cook them in the same way as fresh mushrooms.
While they are a good substitute for the fresh article
they are deficient in flavor.

Mushroom Ketchup.—To each peck of mushrooms
add one-half pound of salt; to each quart of mushroom
liquor one-half ounce of allspice, one-half ounce of gin-
ger, two blades of pounded mace, one-fourth ounce of
cayenne. ic

Choose full-grown mushroom flaps, and be careful
that they are perfectly fresh-gathered when the weather
is tolerably dry; for if they are picked during rain the
ketchup made from them is liable to get musty, and
will not keep long. Puta layer of them in a deep pan,

COOKING MUSHROOMS. 161

sprinkle salt over them, then another layer of mush-
rooms and so on alternately. Let them remain for a
few hours, and break them up with the hand; put them
in a cool place for three days, occasionally stirring and
mashing them well to extract from them as much juice
as possible. Measure the quantity without straining,
and to each quart allow the above proportion of spices,
etc. Put all into a stone jar, cover it up very closely,
put it in a saucepan of boiling water, set it over the
fire and let it boil for three hours. Have ready a
clean stewpan ; turn into it the contents of the jar, and
let the whole simmer very gently for half an hour; pour
it into a pitcher, where it should stand ina cool place
until the next day; then pour it off into another pitcher
and strain it into very dry clean bottles, and do not
squeeze the mushrooms. To each pint of ketchup add
a few Grops of brandy. Be careful not to shake the
contents, but leave all the sediment behind in the
pitcher ; cork well, and either seal or rosin the cork, so
as to exclude the air perfectly. When a very clear,
bright ketchup is wanted the liquor must be strained
through a very fine hair sieve or flannel bag after it has
been very gently poured off; if the operation is not suc-
cessful it must be repeated until you have quite a clear
liquor. It should be examined occasionally, and if it is:
spoiling should be reboiled with a few peppercorns.
Seasonable from the beginning of September to the mid-
dle of October, when this ketchup should be made.
Mushroom Ketchup.—This flavoring ingredient, if
genuine and well prepared, is one of the most useful
store sauces to the experienced cook, and no trouble
should be spared in its preparation. Double ketchup is
made by reducing the liquor to half the quantity ; for
example, one quart must be boiled down to one pint.
This goes further than ordinary ketchup, as so little is
required to flavor a good quantity of gravy. The sedi-
11

162 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

ment may also be bottled for immediate use, and will be
found to answer for flavoring thick soups or gravies.

Mushroom Ketchup.—In making ketchup use the
very best mushrooms, full grown but young and fresh,
as it is highly important to secure fine flavor, and- this
we can not get from inferior mushrooms. Take a meas-
ure of fine fresh mushrooms and see that they are clean
and free from grit; stem and peel them; cut them into
very thin slices and place a layer of these on the bottom
of a deep dish or tureen; sprinkle this layer with fine
salt, then put in another layer and sprinkle with salt as
before, and so on until the dish is full. The white suc-
culent part of the stems may also be used in the ketch-
up, but never any discolored, tough or stringy part.
On the top of all strew a layer of fresh walnut rind cut
into small pieces. Place the dish in a cool cellar for
four or five days, to allow the contents to macerate.
When the whole mass has become nearly liquid pass it
through acolander. Then boil down the strained liquor
to half of its bulk and add its own weight of calf’s-foot
jelly ; season with allspice or white pepper and boil down
to the consistence of jelly. Pour into stoneware jars
and keep in a cool place.

Pickled Mushrooms.—Use sufficient vinegar to
cover the mushrooms ; to each quart of mushrooms two
blades of pounded mace, ove ounce of ground pepper,
salt to taste. Choose young button mushrooms for pick-
ling, and rub off the skin with a piece of flannel and salt,
and cut off the stalks; if very large take out the red gills
and reject the black ones, as they are too old. Put them
in a stewpan, sprinkle salt over them, with pounded
mace and pepper in the above proportion; shake them
well over a clear fire until the liquor flows, and keep
them there until it is all dried up again; then add as
much vinegar as will cover them ; let it simmer for one
minute, and store it away in stone jars for use. When

COOKING MUSHROOMS. 163

cold tie down with bladder and keep in a dry place;
they will remain good for a long time, and are generally
considered delicious. Make this the same time as
ketchup, from the beginning of September to the middle
of October. [The above recipes are furnished by Mrs.
George Amberley, of New York City.

INDEX.

Ammonia Arising, ..... 4
Anguillule,.. . . 14
n Decaying Vegetation, 126

Sealding Water to mM, eo

To Destroy, . . ; . - 114
Apparatus, Hot Water, oe e 88
Atmosphere, Manure Steam for

oistening, . . . » . 114

Eine, a too Dry, ate ae
Barn Cellar: 10
Bedding, Wetted with Urine, . 8
Beds, . «we 3G

‘Alongside of ‘wall, o ¢ @ 28

Banked Against a "wall, » . 58

Bearing in November, . . 25

Black Spot inthe, . . . . 108

Boring Holes in, to Reduce
Temperature, .... . 7%

Bottom of, . . ... . «+ WW
BOX 6 oe be He we Ow IT
Casing, after Spawning, . 100
Casingthe. . . . . . + » 104
Earthing Overthe, . . . 103
Experiments as to i a
‘ime to Case, . . . - 104
Fifteen Inches Thick,. . . 22
qirmly Built,. . . . . . 6
Fla’ - . 50
Flat, Sods fit only for, - - 107
Floor, 5 - « lg
Flooring for the, p 28
Green Sods, Method of Cas-
ing, - 106
Killing the Mycelium in, - 96
Loam for,. ..... . .100
Manure, . . » 20
Maximum Heat of Best, 2
Midwinter,. ...... 39

Mulehing, ...... .
Mushrvom,. .
Never Spawn, when Heat is
Rising, .
ee in Dwelling House
ell ae
Of Low Temperature, Ss oe ie
Onthe Floor,.. . a
Outside. .

Parching Effect Visible on,
Picking ‘‘ Fogged-off’? Mush-
roomsfrom, ..... 1

13
Re-Invigorating Old, . 120
Renovating Old, in England, 142

Beds, Ridge,. . . cee AD
Second Crop from, «= « «120
Shelf, » 16,29
Spawned ‘at 66° to 70°, « a 9T
Spawning and este - 14
Spawning the,. . . . . 9%
Spent Mushroom, . . . 121
Stale, ... + 2 a 16
Tamping Surface of, 23
Temperature of a Twelve

Inch Thick Bed, . . 96
Ten or Twelve Inches Deep, 19
Tendingthe, ...... 17
Three Feet Deep, ... .- 2
To Keep, Warm, .. . . 109
Topdressed,. .

Under Greenhouse Benches,

Tomake,....... 5&
Watering, ..... =. . 2
Watering the,. . . . . . 108
Watering Mushroom,. . . 111
When Dry to be Watered,. 111

Wide, With Pathway Above,* 44
Worn Out, . . 120
Beetles, Larvze of Two, Destroy-

ing Mycelium,. . . ‘
Benches Covered, . .... . 40
Black Spot, ........ 14
A Disease, . + 125
In Beds in ‘Vigorous Bearing, 125
In New Beds,. . . - + 125
Is Unwholesome, ... . 126
To Prevent, ..... 125
Boards, Stepping,. . .- - . .- 17
Boiler and Pipes, . 32

Boilers, Hitching’s Base-burner, 31
19

Boxing,. . .. ees Se
Lid for,. . » . 19
Old Carpet or Matting Over, 19

“Bullet” or “Shot” Holes in
Mushrooms, ... . .- 12

Bugs, Mealy,. ..... . - 12
Calico, . 2... 2. 1 6 «© © w © 18
Caves, .. aoe we
Caves of Paris, In the,*" a as ah TERT
Paris, Descr‘ption of, . . . 143
French Spawn Used in, . 146
Gathering Mvshrooms for
Marketinthe,. .. . . 149
Making Bedsinthe, . . . 145

Manure Used in the, . . . 144
Material Used for and Meth-
od of Earthing Overin, . 146

164

INDEX, 165

Caves, Methods of Regulating Families, Palvates oapcy we tee 48
Draughts inthe, . Farmers, . . oe ew eee 18
Preparation of Manure for Flies, Manure, . ey a » . 126
the, .. Manure, Ill-favor of, | « . . 126

Paris, Spawn Used ‘in the,
and How Obtained,
Stratifying Spawn "Before
Using inthe,. . 1
Temperature in Spacious,
High Roofed, .. » . 1T
Ventilation in ‘the, ae ad
When and How Mushrooms
are Gatheredinthe, . .1
eae, Flat, .......
SIOMINE, 22 bow & wa x
Ob, 6 eu we a we eS AS
Cellar, Barn, ae. 13
Cleanliness i in the “Mushroom, 26
9

Cool,. ..
Cross-section of the Dosoris
Mushroom,* . .... . 27

Dosoris Mushroom, ... 27
Divided, 30
Ground Plan of the Dosoris,* 28
Height of; « « © 6 « « « 17
House,. ... - 13
Interior Arrangements of, . 16

Mushroom, Under a Barn,* 16
Of Dwelling House,. . . . 18
Ordinary, « + ssw +. 2
Outhouse,. ....... 18
Pent-up, ef tanokge Gp) sik pen te ae A
Unheated, » «© « « 4 » « 17
Vegetable, Boe ow ee | 12
Warm, . 19
Wholly Devoted to Mush!
room Growing, . . - -
Cellars,. . . - -- 10
Artificial Heating, | ae a ee ae UT
Cool, Ai: - 20
Flat Roofed “Mushroom, - » 18
Mushrooms in, ..... 2
Potato,. .....: 18
Underground,. . .. . ” 15, 27
Cistern, Large Underground, - 18
Coal, Nut and Stove, . . . 33
Cold and Vermin, . . . - . 19
Cooking Mushrooms, ... . 150
nop Common Average, . . . 30
athering the, .. . .. 17
Marketing the, ..... 14
Yielding, ....... 31
Crops, Capital, . . . . . . . 17
Cut Flower Season,. . . .. It
Dirt, Roadside, . ..... .101
Doors, Donble,. . . .... 16
Outside, ........ 35
Single, _. 16
Drip, Cold, Falling upon Beds, 36
Crop Suffering From,. . 51
From Benches, the Effects of, 51
In Commercial Greenhouses, 52
Plan for Warding off, . . 52
Dust and Noxious Gas,. . . . 17
Entrance,. .... +... 16
Entrance Pits, ...... . 30
Economy, False, .....-. 37

Manure. Perfectly Harmless, 127
Fire, Danger of,. .. . . .

Flock, .. Pare an * 432
How General is,” Doe te i
The Cause of,

The Habits and “Manner of
Growth of, . 1
ba iast oe Mushroom Dis-
«we @ 182
What. it Looks ‘Like, - . . 1A
Whatis,... - + 133

Floor, A Dry, Necessary, oo e &

Common Earth, . - eee AE

Ty,
Earthen, . cee ee we BL
Flooring, ...
ROE UE Off, . 106, 131
‘avorable Conditions for, » 132
The Cause of, . .... .131
Florists, .. ee, i AL
Florists’ Greenhouses, ee 10
Frame, Boxed-up with Straw
Covering,*. . et
Covered with Calico, «2 « 20
Covered with Oiled Paper,. 20

Common Hotbed Box,. . . 45
Preparing Bedsinthe,. . 46
Shadingthe, ..... . 47
Spawningin,. ..... 46
Frost,Hoar, ....... . 35
ToExclude, ...... 40
Fruit Room, . . oe e » 12
Furnace, Boxed off, . Gera iel cae rae ae
Gardens, Private. . 37

SxAper Be Beds and Frames In-
et a
escnueies Bench, ‘Boxed Mush-
Toom Bed Under,* es) 8
Greenhouse Benches, Among
Other Plantson, . .. . 48
Greenhouse Benches, On, .. 42
Greenhouse Benches, Under, . 47
Gr PUM OUners Beds in ‘Open, Airy, o
ool,. ..

Growing Mushrooms in, 5 al
In Framesein, ...... 4
Steam-heated, ..... 48
Growers, Parisian, . 60
Heat, Artificial not Absolutely
‘Necessary, wae win ee be ve
WUre@s se as a Be a ee we OT
Parching, . . 17
Heater, Base-burning Water,*" 32

Vertical Section”* .. . . 32

Heating mo sil ee ee BB
Hoe, Angular-pointed,. . . . 23
Hops, Spent, . - « 6&8

Spent, Cost Nothing, oo « 69
Horses, Those who Keep, .. 13
Hotbed Fraines, ...... 44
House, A Mushroom, ... . =

COWS se. us eee ay
Ground Plan of Mrs. Os-

166

borne’s Mushroom,* . .
In Dwelling, .
Interior ‘Arrangement of
Mushroom.
Interior View of Mr. Hen-
shaw’s Mushroom,* . . °
Mr. Samuel Henshaw’s, .
Mushroom, Built Against
North-facing Wall,* ..
Section of Mrs. Osborne’ s,*.
Houses, Fruit-forcing, .

Growing Mushrooms in Rose, 49

Lettuce, Mushroomsin,. .
Tomato-forcing, Mushrooms

ANG fae 58. ot
Well-sheltered in Winter .
Insecticide, Common Salt as an,
Leaves, Condition of, to Heat, .
Fermenting, Beds Com-
posedof,. ......
Oak, the Best,. .....
Quick-rotting, .....
Tree, .
Lettuce House, Moisture of, | A
Lice, Wood, ib ta ter Me oe
Loam and Manure, oe ai Sw
Mixed, . . .
Mixed, Temperature of, .
Mixed, To Prepare,. .. .
Loam, Coating, * oo
Common, for Casing, eae
Containing Old Manure, .
Fibrous, Mellow, Best for
Earthing Over,. ....
Fresh Sod, . . . ra
Heavy, Clayey, .-....
Ordinary Field Soil, . . .

Sod, Reasons for Use of,. . ‘

Topdressin with,. ...
Lot, Village or Suburban,. . .
Manure, .... +. «ese

36
18

7
33
37
35

12

3
113

100
101

103

Baled, .......-. &

Cellar,. - . 2... «se.
City Stable,. ......
Common Horse,. ... .
Cow,. ..

Cow. ‘Necessary in’ Manu-
facture of Spawn, .. .
Drying by Exposure,. . .
Fermenting Fresh Horse,
“Fire-fanged,” ....
Firmly Packed, ....
ies ss ee eo 1281
Fresh, . oo.

Fresher the Better, | oie
From City Stables, . .

German Peat Moss Stable,
Handling,. ......
Homemade, .....
Horse, . . rae
Tae Mycelium “Evades, %

shtesesauanisaxns

Liquid: Cor ’ Cow and Sheep, ae
ntire Horses, . .
Of rors fed with Carrots,

eee

Mu 4
Preparation of ‘the, ee %

61
62

MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

Manure Preserve the Wet and

Strawy Part, .... . 60
Proper Condition of, . . - 72
Sawdust Stable, se eo 666
Selected, . . eis 2 ie ve 16S)
Steaming Hot, ineae 2
The Best, 57
To Prevent “fire-fang” in,” 70

Turning the,. . . s: « « 14, 71

Warm,. . . . ss 2 ee

Well-rotted, igh ain we

Without Preparatory Treat-

ment, . . 2. 2 6 2 ee

Market, A Good, .....--.

Gardener, fae - 9,

Gardening near ‘New York, 9
Markets, Brooklyn,. ... . 2

In Winter, . . a @ 10
Materials, Exhausted, . 3) ie san tal OLB:
For Beds, Fresh,. . ... 16
Waste of, .. & ee Ae
Method, Mr. ‘Denton’ 3, 3 a wy 28
Mr. Gardner’s, . . .. . 21

Mr. Van Siclen’s,

7 27
- Methods, Avoiding Complicated, ae

Mice and Rats, . . .
Different Kinds of, oe + 130
Fond of Mushrooms, . . . 130

Mice, How they Disfigure Mush-
rooms, .
Mites not a ‘Mushroom Pest, .
The Home of, . .- - .
Two Kinds of, Common, .
Moisture, Condensation of, . .
Mold on Beds, How Deep 10 Ent, 108
Money, Pin- . . 5 14
Musbroom, A Perfect, *. 2. . 16
‘Affected with Black Spot,*” 125
Bed Built Flat on the
Ground,* 52
Bed. Es Five Feet “Wide, Profit
Bed, Rigid* See ea
Beds, . oe UL
Beds in England, How made, 137
Beds, Makingupthe, .. 74
Beds, Manure-fatted Loam

Beds, ‘Manure for, oy ter ee ie

Beds, Mr. Wilson’s,* . .

Beds on Greenhouse Benches,
Objection to, .

Beds, Sites for Around Lon-
don,. . 1

Cellar, Perspective View of
the Dosoris,*¥ .....

D, » . 8 13
Flock-Diseased, ose ks ae
Growing in the Paris Caves, 143

Growing Out of Doors a
Specialty, . - 136

Growing, Profit of, ‘Around
mdon,.. . . - - 136
Growing, Success ‘inj eo ve) 12
House, ’ Regular, ee « 12
House, Best Kind of,. . . 11

INDEX. 167

Mushroom House,Cellar aon
body’s,

Se ia 15
House, Damping Floors of, 115
Houses, Cleaning the,. . . 135
HOMERS: Gomme Mushrooms a
Houses, Ideai, ote ~~. B
Houses, Whitewashing, « + 135
Season Closed, at iss 31
Sp wn, . oe ee e B
e “Horse,” eRe 48
re ‘Winter bie 14
Advantages o} Pulling over
Cutting, .. « © 117
After a Dry Summer, | ~ o » 55
And Grapevines, .... 13
Black Spotin, . 124
Cause o Black Spot in, hte ee
English, . .
Filling Stump “Holes “ett
Fresh Loam 11
nie Inch Diameter before
Expandin ee os ow Mas, de AE
For Family Use, . . 13
For Soups, When to Piek, . 116
esh, .. - « - 12
From Natural S awn, - . 4
From October Until May, . 30

Gathering and Marketing,

115

Gathering Field and Wi id, 118
Gathering in Cold ‘Weather, 140

Growing in Cellars, ae ae

19
15

Growing, in Narrow Troughs, 59

Growing in Ridges Around
London, . . cae
Growing in Sawdust, 6. ee
Grown on Greenhouse

Benches,*. . .

Growth of from Spawning
under spiavend aner™
tures, ... Ser

Head Room,. . ae

Importance of Gare in Gath-
ering and Packing for
Shipment, .

67

110

19

119

In August and September, - 56

In Crates and Baskets, . .
Growing in Fields, . .
In the Fields, Plan of Grow-

118
54

ing,

Insect and Other Enemies of, 122
Knack in Pulling, . . . . 117
Maggotsin, . . . . 122,124

‘“*Maggots” in, Appear in 1

April, ... oe
Maggots. Size of, in, .

Marketed in Paper Boxes, ie

Marketing, . . se eee ae

Not a Bulky Crop, a ar

On Greenliouse Bench Un-
der Tomatoes,

Packed in Punnets for Lon-
don Market, . .

Picking so as not to Disturb

11

Buttons, .....- 117
“Pin-Head,” . . » « « . 107

Mushrooms, Profit on,Clear Gain, 51
er Manner of Picking, 116

Pulled leaps Qualities of,117
Scooping Out the L SUES) ‘317

Sold by the Pound,. . . . 118
Sorting and _ Packing for
Market, in England, . . 141
Summer Cropsof, ... .123
Under the Benches, ... il

When Fit to Pick, . . . . 115
Who Should Grow, ... 9
Wild, . 5

Mulching, When to Remove, - 42
Myselom, Liquid to Encourage
ee toa es Weal Shee ad
Odor, oe eo ew ew ew ew
Outbuildings, oP es et er AD
Paper, Building, ..... . 52

led, . 2. 2 eee ee e 18
Passage-ways, . ... ... 18
Pathways, .. if - 16
Peat Moss, Bale of German, - . 6
Pipes, Heating, . ..... 17

Hot, Injury from, ... . 48

Hot Wat ter,. 2 2. oe ee BB

SheetIron, ....... 27

Smoke, . . oe ee
Private Gardeners, - ie 12
Rats, sre Destructive “than

Mie 131
Recipes for Cooking and Pre-
serving Mushrooms, . .- 150
AlaCasse, Tout, ... . 157
AlaCréme,...... .154
Baked, .... . . . 152,156
Broiled, . 154, 156
Broiled Beefsteak and, - « 158
Cooked, General Directions
for Serving, eae ee
Cooking, . . » 150

Cooking, General Prepara-
tion of, for, . . . »« . « 151
Curried, . . . . « « « « 154

@d,. « & wt & « © 160
Gilbert’s Breakfast, . . . 156
Ketchup,. . . . . 160, 161, 162

Kind of, to Select for, . . 150
Pickled,. ...... + 162
Potted,. . . . « « « « . 155
eg + ee wee © «© 19

o « 1K
Soubis mieakeset . - es 153
Stems, . . . . « « « «- ~ 155

Stewed, ... . . »« 153, 157
To Dry, oe « © © « © 159
To Preserve, eo eo eo ow 158
Ridges, ... ie © eee WT
fasing the, . eo ee oo « 139
Covering the, . « » 140

Covering with Litter,” - + 139
Drennan ra dodges
Pint made in Aug os 6 140
For Growing Mushrooms in
See es in timuahs
Method of Gathering Mush-
Fooms from, .. .+ « « ial

168

Ridges, Smoothing the, .. .
he Covered,* .... .
Watering the,. ... .

Roof,. . ie a ee 785
Roofs ‘water-tight, Soca Ke ee we 89)
Tin. 38

With Coating of ‘Salt Hay, 38
Salad Plants,. ..... - 10
Sashes, . . . 2. 2. «+ «© 6 «© 46
Secret, No,. ... - . 14

Shading on Sunny Days, oe
Shaft, Chimney-like, . .. . 16
Shaft, Tall, Wooden, . . .
Shed, Open on pe Side, a
Potting, oe de me, 1D
Warm otting, Be erect: a)
The Term Applied, ...
MOOhe: &- 3 4) ww ae 2 ¥
Wood,. . .- 2... «ee
Sheds, Growing Mushroomsin, 39
Unheated,... 40
Shelves, Temporary Structures,
ee Ligh nt Wooden,. . .
Slugs, . 127
‘Attack Mushrooms in’ ail

Stages, . «1
Biting into Stems of Mush-
rooms,... oe wer ce TOE

Fond of Mushrooms. *
How to Catch and Kill,.
Salt Distasteful to, . .
The Cause of “Bullet” or
“Shot” Holes, . . 128
Soil, eneions of for, Casing, 105
Firmin 106
From § ‘: Bes and Dry Hol-
lows in Woods, - - - 101
Ordinary Garden, .. . . 101

aan, or Swamp Muck, . . mt
Sifting, for Casing, “105

Southern States, ..... . 10

Spawn,. .. « eee AS
‘American-made, i) ve rae ae 186
Amount of Imported, .. 80
oe ae Method by La-

chai
Black Colored to be. Avoided, 86
Breaking,. ....... 2
Brick,* . 80
Brick, Cut’ in Pieces “for
Planting,*... . oe sen a

Brick, How to Make, i esl cen 7 BT

Brick, the Best, . . . . . 95
De th to Plant, ome 98
Effect of Heat and Moisture
Upon,

Effect. of Severe Frost Upon, 83
English, . . oe me le
English Brick, . oO ae te 23
lake,. .. 82, 99
eteree Does Best under
Flake of French,* . o 6 » 82

French, . ae ats TY aa ces BS
French Flake, | . 24
Homemade Around London, 137

MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM.

Spawn, How to ong ea
Good from Poor, .

How toGet, ...... 9
How to Keep, 83
Haas tomake French (Flake), 91
ie a from Europe, . . 79
eaf Beds,. . . ~ > 68

In Manure, Do not Bury, . 10
Inserting French or Flake, 98
Inserting more than Three
Inches Deep, . . . ._. 105
Insuring Development of, . 49
Lachaume’s ethod of
Making, .
Making, Distinct Branch, a
Making French Virgin, . 92
Mill-track, . 81
Mr. J. Burton's Method ot
Making, ....... 9
Natural, . teen ph var BL
New Versus old, . 83
ee use Dibber in Plant

other Reci ipes for Making,
Planting of in Open Fiel
Preparing the, .
ae al American Grow-
ers
Relative Merits ‘of Flake
and Brick, . fare
Signs of Sterility in, oH
Simplest Way of Making, .
Steeped, .
The Wa: in which it Comes,
To tell Quality by Smell of,
Tegnsplanting Fieces of
ing,. .. ae
“Very Dead,” ......
“Very Living,” - et dest. ce
Virgin, . . oe a = 8291
What is Mushroom, aoe
Where OPtained, « gt ey oH OD
Spiders, Red, . . ee a «12
Spores, Myriads Of; 2 4s «@
Spurious Fungi, .
Stable, Empty Stall in “Horse, . 13

Staging, apisas TeMIDOTEENE %
Stair ways a je ae 16
Seknan, Crop, ow 4 at a ee
Stoke-hole, . . oi eee
Stove, Common Iron, oy a 26
Straw, Rye, . ~ &
Sunlight, Protection from, + #10
Temperature, ....... 10

At Night, . . fg we AL

About 57° Suitable, | Ne 8
Fluctuations of, .. . . . 15
From 50° to 60°, . . - + - 18

High, Bt atta dy cate say er 9,
In Dosoris Cellars,. . . 109
In Midwinter,. . .... 3
alka ae er Se . 15
Hie ee ” 05, 109
den ‘Changes’ to be
Savane da, 47

Too High, Guard “Against, | 76

INDEX. 169

Temperature, Winter, 60° Nec- Warmth, Artificial,. . ... 17

@SSATY). soe se we ae Steady, . ; 17
Thrips, ......... . 12] Water, Manure, for Beds ‘in

Toads, .
Not to be Recommended,
Upheaving Clumps of Mush-

rooms, - -.... - 131
Toadstools, ..+.... 102
On Hotbeds,. . . . . - 102

On Manure Piles, . . . . 102
Trapping Rats and Mice,. . . 131

Traps for Wood Lice, . . . . 129
Tunnel, Subterranean,. . . . 27
Ventilation, Assisting, ... 17
Ventilator, Chimney-like, . . 22

Ventilators, ee eer 16, 28
Side Window, SA eget &
Window and Doors. . . 21

Village People and Suburban

Residents,. . ‘

Wall, See not Injurious, - . 30
Walis,. . , 2.1. sce eee

Full Bearing, .
Space and Double Casing, - &2
Watering, Endeavor to Lessen
Necessity of, 111
For, use Clean, Soft Water, af
Over Mulching, . . - 1
Pot, Size touse, .. .
Wife, Farmer’s, ...... 14
Windows, . . 16
Winds, Piercing, and ‘Draughts, 3e
Women Searching for Remu-
nerative Employment, . 14
Wood Liee, . . . 129
Abundant in Mushroom
Houses,. . . - «+ « « «12
Eating Potato, .....
Howto Trap, ....--.
Work, Clean, . ....-e >

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For home use fresh Mushrooms are a delicious, highly nutritious and
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How to Co-operate.

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