Mushrooms

The Dosoris Mushroom Cellar.—This is a subterranean tunnel or cellar that was excavated and arched some ten years ago, expressly for the cultivation of mushrooms. It is situated 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 end are given up to entrance pits and a heating apparatus; and the full length of the mushroom cellar proper inside the inner walls is sixty-three feet. 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. This tunnel or arch is seven feet high in the middle and eight feet wide within, but a raised two-feet-wide pathway along the middle lessens the height to six and one-half feet. 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 been a better ventilator than the three ventilating holes now there, which are covered over with an iron and glass grating.

At one end of the house and behind the stairs descending into the pit is the heating apparatus, from which a four-inch hot-water pipe passes around inside the house near the wall and only four inches above ground. A three-feet 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 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, spawning 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 important 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 and 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 quarter 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 upright board is firm enough to hold its place against any 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 movable stairs. These dimensions are needed at the end where the heating apparatus is placed, but at the other end, although it is convenient in handling 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 renewed 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 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 January, 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 gathered 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 mushrooms. 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 shelving, 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 satisfaction it gives generally. This boiler needs no deep or spacious stoke-hole. 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 common parlor stove, has a magazine for the supply of coal. 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 horizontal 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 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 cellar 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 sudden 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 apparatus 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 run where it would be unsafe to put smoke pipes.

CHAPTER III.

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. But a 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 the advantage of the natural warmth, and spare the artificial 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 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 outside. 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 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 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 maintain 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. The moisture arising from the interior of the house condenses upon the flat ceiling, and the water, having no way of running off, drips down 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 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 by the drip falling from it upon the beds below that her gardener had the flat ceiling removed and a sloping one built instead, and now it works splendidly, and a few months ago I saw as fine a 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 is a 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 overreach 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 opening the outside door.

Mr. Samuel Henshaw's Mushroom House.—Mr. 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 sashes 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 coating of salt hay, to preserve an equable temperature 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 clusters 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 maintain 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 succession. Then, if need be, and he wishes to renew the bed at the further end of the house, he clears it out and supplies 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 flat on the ground, or rounded up against the sides of the shed; in the latter case the house should be well 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 mushroom house, so that they may retain their heat for a long time.

Shelf beds should not be used in unheated sheds, because 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 unheated, 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 atmospheric changes, and guard against the beds drying too quickly.

CHAPTER V.

GROWING MUSHROOMS 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 vegetable 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 mushrooms than hothouses. Cool houses are seldom kept at 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 covering 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 temperature; 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 out 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 greenhouse benches is their liability to frequent and marked 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. Gardner 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 several compartments, to accommodate the different varieties of crops, also so that some can be run as succession houses. In order to make the most of everything, 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 matters nothing to him whether the house is cold or warm, he can grow mushrooms in it anyway, and in order to be master of the situation he makes his mushroom 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 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 governs the light admitted to the mushrooms.

The greenhouses in which the mushrooms are grown are orchard houses, that is, glasshouses in which peach 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 material being confined in frames retains warmth enough for the proper development of the mushrooms, and as the winter advances and the heat in the frames begins to wane it becomes necessary to begin heating the greenhouses 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 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 spiræas, peas, beans, or other flowers or vegetables are to be grown. These love the light and a position near the glass, whereas the mushrooms 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 penetrate 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 glass was scarcely apparent; but ventilation is 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 it does, the floor to be under the beds can be rendered dry 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 allowing 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 spontaneously among the roses, carnations, violets, mignonette, 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 spawn, but occasionally a much larger and heavier sort is produced, and this is the "horse" mushroom. It is perfectly good to eat, only of coarser quality than the other.

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 surrounded 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 fermenting 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 season 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 January, 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 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 mushroom 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 convenience' 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 shutters set up against the aperture between the lettuce benches and the floor, in this way boxing in the mushrooms in total darkness.

Mr. William Wilson, of Astoria, has an immense greenhouse establishment near New York. In his greenhouses, 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 ground, and protected from strong light by having muslin 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 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 in a large measure kill the spawn. I have seen many examples of this evil. The beds would be full of drip holes all over their surface, and although a good many mushrooms here and there about the bed might perfect themselves, 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 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, "planted 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 greenhouses where potted plants are grown on the stages. Under these "planted out" benches, 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 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 ordinary hotbed frames and sashes, as described in a previous chapter. Light wooden shutters—made of one-half inch or five-eighths inch pine—may be used for the same end, and will last for many years.

In open, airy greenhouses it is always well to inclose the mushroom beds in box casings and with sash or shutter 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 boards (twenty inches) high, and covering 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 injurious to the other inmates of the greenhouse. If the manure has been well prepared before it was introduced 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 planting 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 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—as it certainly often does—that good spawn planted by hand in the fields in early summer will produce mushrooms 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 a rule, 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 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 containing 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 following 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 eighteen 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 one 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 abundance 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 accepted 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 mushrooms.

Horse Manure.—There are various kinds of horse manure, differing materially in their worth for mushroom beds. The kind of manure depends upon the condition 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 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 stylish establishments, where everything is kept so scrupulously dry and clean.