i8g4- 



GARDENING. 



41 



MR. HILLS MUSHROOM BEDS 



an old straw pile that has been tramped 

 down among the grass and mixed with 

 cow, horse and hog droppings (by the 

 way I fail to find that hog manure inter- 

 feres with spawn running). They are 

 snow white capped, with pretty pink gills 

 the same as usually come up in old pas- 

 ture fields in the fall. I gathered a lot of 

 the spawn the other day and intend 

 planting some beds of it. They are not so 

 lieavy as the English variety but are 

 superior in general appearance Whatdo 

 you think about cultivating them? 

 [Doubtful. If for profit, we would stick 

 to the brick spawn. — Ed.] In connection 

 with the beds spawned with the spawn 

 found in the old bed first mentioned there 

 was a very peculiarmushroom comingup 

 in a few of them. It comes up with a very 

 large base and the cap is small at first 

 but soon grows and retains an elongated 

 form, and is of a dark cinnamon color 

 showing white lines as the cap enlarges. 

 They are from four to ten inches in dianic- 

 ter when fully open. The veil is entire and 

 firmly attached to stem (same as rubes- 

 CC7JS as pictured in Robinson's mushroom 

 book) and becomes detached from the 

 cap all around, falling down and around 

 the stem. The stem is of a yellowish 

 white color, inclined to be pithy and hol- 

 low. The veil is beautiful in form, dotted 

 over with light brown spots raised con- 

 siderable above the surface and can be 

 easily detached by the touch or by blow- 

 ing on them; gills are slightly pink- \\ hen 

 broken it has the odor of bitter almonds. 

 I examined the spawn directly underneath 

 it and find it far larger than ordinary 

 spawn. Can you identily it frora»th'e 

 above description? [No. Please dry and 

 send us specimens foridcntification. — Ed ] 

 Ohio. .\(;.\Ricis. 



GROWING MUSHROOMS. 



Some years ago I became interested in 

 mushrooms and started growing them. I 

 have experimented a good deal, and from 

 a close observation of the mushrooms in 

 the fields have learned as much as from 

 books, and practicallj- I have learned 

 more from one failure than from half a 

 dozen chance successes. 



I handled the manure for the beds dif- 

 ferent from other people, the body of the 

 bed is simply a hotbed, but the surface 

 laj'er four inches deep consists of fresh 

 horse and cow manure mixed with a little 

 earth and sand, and it is in this I place 

 the spawn. I have had mushrooms in 

 six w<eks from the time I started the 

 hotbed part, and the beds havelastcdfive 

 months in bearing. The beds are in tiers 

 in large sheds, and four feet wide by 

 twenty-one feet long, and my average 

 whole season's picking from each bed 

 last year was 100 pounds of mushrooms. 

 To a large extent I use natural spawn. 



All the manure I handle fresh. Moisture 

 in the manure is the hardest part to learn. 

 Too much moisture kills the spawn, and 

 not enough delays the crop, killing half of 

 it. For marketing I pack the mushrooms 

 in shallow solint wood baskets holding 

 about 2 pounds each,thev are 12x12 inches 

 by 3 inches deep. The mushrooms keep nice 

 and cool in them, and can be safely 

 shipped a considerable distance. I give a 

 printed guarantee of the quality with 

 every basket. 



The demand for fresh mushrooms in 

 California is somewV'at limited, butinthe 

 eastern states where the market is vastly 

 greater it should be a paying investment. 

 Instead of the laborious and expensive 

 system of hand labor for everything and 

 brick buildings, wooden shuls are better, 



and machinery should be used for manip- 

 ulating the manure, and all the mush- 

 rooms that would not find a ready and 

 profitable market in a fresh state, could 

 be made into catsup or canned or dried 

 for future use. 



In an extended trip through the eastern 

 states last summer I visited most of the 

 mushroom growing places of note, and 

 was astonished to find that the growers 

 adher d to the brick structures when 

 wooden buildings properly built are so 

 much better. But mushroom growing is 

 still in its infancy, in a few years we can 

 stop eating the morsels of leather marked 

 "champignons" imported from France, 

 and satisfy ourselves with the home 

 grown product. C. L. Hill. 



San Francisco. 



Maggots in the Manure.— A. Y., Phil- 

 adelphia, writes; I have a load of fresh 

 horse manure in my cellar all ready 

 worked and fit for making into a bed, 

 but I find there are lots of small white 

 maggots in it. Will they injure the crop 

 or what shall I do to kill them? 



We don't know what the maggots are. 

 We would pitch out the manure and start 

 afresh with clean manure. Mushrooms 

 are too fickle a crop to runany risks with. 

 Any attempt now to kill the maggots 

 might destroy the worth of the manure. 

 If you had observed maggots in the 

 manure while it was fresh, you might, by 

 having the manure moist and letting it 

 get pretty hot, say 130° to 135°, kill 

 them. But much care is needed to prevent 

 the manure from "burning" when it gets 

 so hot as that, (or "fire-fanged" or 

 "burned" manure is of verj' little use for 

 mushrooms. 



