28 



JOUKNAL OF HOBTICULTDRE AND COTTAGE GARDENEB. 



( Jaauar7 II, 1869 



aignments of Potatoes were also unusually large, and the croP 

 was the best and most forward that has been known for nearly 

 a quarter of a century. 



A SIMPLE MODE OF GRO^VING MUSHROOMS. 



So much has lately been written about growing Mushrooms, 

 and so many methods of cultivation advocated, that I am in- 

 duced to give you a few notes on the matter. My experience 

 aa a Maehroom-cultivator extends over a period of twenty years. 

 During this period I have grown them in many different ways, 

 iQ many fashionable as well as unfashionable houses and sheds, 

 and in the open air, during summer and winter, in different 

 parts of the country, and for various purposes — for the supply 

 of ducal tables, and for sale in Covent Garden Market — and 

 I can truly say, without desiring to boast of my own success, 

 that there is no vegetable so simple or easy of cultivation as 

 the Mushroom. 



The method which I adopt generally for winter supply, and 

 that which I have found the simplest, may be briefly stated 

 thus. I procure two cartloads of good fresh stable manure, 

 and shake out the longest of the straw. I am not, however, 

 very particular about this. Tiien it is turned over in the open 

 air once or twice to get rid of the rank steam. When this is 

 gone the dung is taken into one of the sheds at the back of the 

 houses, and about four barrowfuls of ordinary fresh soil mixed 

 with it. The bed is then made up on the floor of the shed to a 

 d^pth of about 12 inches, pressed rather firmly, and spawned 

 when at a temperature of between 75° and 80°. A covering of 

 about 1 inch of good strong loam in a rather rough state is 

 then added, and beaten level with the spade. By using heavy 

 loam as a covering, the Mushrooms produced are of a much more 

 solid character than where light sifted soil is used ; they are, 

 consequently, more valuable, commanding a far higher price in 

 the market. The whole is then covered up with at least 9 inches 

 of straw or long litter. 



I never use any fire heat, as I consider that a piece of useless 

 extravagance. Better Mushrooms can be grown without fire 

 heat than with it, and a continuous supply kept up throughout 

 the coldest winters. Then, if it is so — and that it is so I 

 should be very pleased to show anyone who may favour me 

 with a call — why should our employers be put to so much 

 expense in erecting and heating grand dungeons for this dainty, 

 which can be so easily cultivated without their aid ? I have 

 several beds in bearing now that have been made in the manner 

 described. To-day (December 16th), I have picked a punnetful 

 from a square foot. I could pick many such — in fact, the beds 

 are a perfect sheet of white all over. Seeing that they are so 

 easily cultivated, who would be, who need be, without their 

 dish of Mushrooms ?—E. G., Stamford. 



CHRYSANTHEMUM GEM. 

 Allow me to correct a mistake which occurs in the list of 

 hardy bedding plants given by me in the Journal of December 

 Slst, at page 405. " Calceolaria Gem," which I wrote by mis- 

 take, should be Chrysanthemum Gem, the Calceolaria of that 

 name being, unfortunately, cot so accommodating in its habits 

 as to stand out all winter under ordinary circumstances. A 

 similar but slightly more robust variety of Chrysanthemum 

 than Gem is grown in some parts of the country under the 

 name of Ruby, and if either of them could be improved in 

 colour they would be most useful for supplying large quantities 

 of cut flowers late in the season. — Ayrshike Gardener. 



SOLANUM CAPSICASTRUM CULTURE. 



I AM not aware what the question of " J. Mason," respecting 

 Solanum capaicastrum, may have been, but I see the answer 

 is, "It requires more heat than the greenhouse — say, 50° to 

 55°." Now, as I have grown the plant several years, perhaps 

 I may be allowed to differ from the Editors. I say that I 

 believe it to be quite hardy, it having here, in the open ground, 

 stood 10° of frost without the youngest shoots even flagging. 

 When well grown, as it is at Bicton, it is a highly ornamental 

 plant, either for the conservatory or for table decoration. 



To grow it well the seeds should be sown early in a little 

 heat, and when the plants are about 1; inch high they should 

 be potted-off into GO-pots, and plunged in a warm bed ; as 

 soon as these are filled with roots they should be shifted into 

 pots of a larger size, and when the weather will permit should 



be planted out in a bed of good soil in the kitchen garden, or 

 elsewhere. About the end of September or beginning of October, 

 the best-shaped plants should be potted in 6-inch pots, trimmed 

 into good shape, and kept in a close frame for about a fortnight 

 till they are well established, and then taken to the conserva- 

 tory. The rest of the plants may remain in the beds, and if, 

 as I conceive them to be, quite hardy, may be moved in the 

 spring to the front of the shrubbery borders where, towards 

 autumn, they will be covered with their beautiful scarlet-orange 

 berries, and add greatly to the beauty of the garden. — A. F., 

 Dorchester. 



BESS POOL APPLE. 



I SAW in the Gardeners' Chronicle an account of some BeSB 

 Pool Apples recently shown at Kensington, and which were the 

 produce of « grafted tree — i.e., of an old tree regrafted. The 

 improved size and colour of these Apples were made the subject 

 of a leading article, and were said to be well worth the notice 

 of the Scientific Committee. It is to be hoped there are 

 some practical men on the Committee, in which case I think 

 the discussion will be a short one. It is also stated that the 

 Bess Pool after it once comes into bearing rarely fails to yield 

 a good crop. My grandfather and father, particularly the latter, 

 were great lovers of fruit trees, and planted largely, and we had 

 at one time 120 acres of orchards. Some of the land proving 

 unfit to grow fruit, the trees were cut down, and I have now 

 74 acres. Before the duty was taken off foreign fruit, a late- 

 keeping handsome Apple like the Bess Pool would, when fruit 

 was scarce, bring a great price — as much as Gs. a-peck. Now I 

 am selling beautiful fruit of the same kind at Is. 



My father became so in love with the Bess Pool that he 

 planted it largely. He used to tell how a girl named Bess Pool 

 found in a wood the seedling tree full of ripe fruit ; how, show- 

 ing the Apples in her father's house — he kept a village inn — 

 the tree became known, and my grandfather procured grafts. 

 He would then show the seven first-planted trees of the kind 

 in one of our nurseries, tell how London had been to see them 

 and given an account of them in his " Gardener's Magazine," 

 make his visitors try to clasp round their boles, and measure 

 the space covered by their branches. He would then boast 

 how, one season, when Apples were very scarce, the fruit of 

 these trees was sold at 7.<. fid. a-peck, and made £70, or an 

 average of £10 a-tree. 



So far from thinking the Bess Pool a regular bearer, I believe 

 it to be a very uncertain one, and anything but a profitable 

 one to plant. 



The seven trees above mentioned, though the finest trees I 

 ever saw, I cut down twenty years ago, and have been regraft- 

 ing Bess Pools almost every year in large numbers, still there 

 were enough left to produce last season from two to three 

 thousand pecks. In this part of the country we count onr 

 Apple crops by pecks, as a Frenchman talks of his fortune by 

 francs. It sounds better, you see ; at any rate, a bushel of 

 Apples is rarely mentioned. Those who notice that when 

 other kinds of Apples are in full bloom, the Bess Pool shows 

 little more signs of growth than in the depth of winter, might 

 imagine that it would generally escape the spring frosts, and 

 so be a particularly certain bearer ; but let them look at the 

 small flowers, and short slender footstalks standing closely 

 packed together. Such blooms, if honeydew or aphis attack 

 them, remain as if glued together till the whole bunch falls to 

 the ground, and in the same way a caterpillar will eat every 

 bloom in a cluster. Large flowers, strong and long footstalks 

 widely divergent, these are with me always taken as signs of 

 a pood regular bearer. 



Ever since I can remember, no one expected a Besa Pool to 

 bear much till it was at least twenty years old; no doubt age 

 has rendered it more precocious to some degree, still it grows 

 too fast when young to bear much. I have trees of this kind 

 to the top of which a ladder of fifty staves will not reach, and of 

 a diameter in proportion, and to show the land suits them, 

 they are in perfect health and growing freely ; and yet trees of 

 the Duchess of Oldenburgh and King of the Pippins, not a 

 quarter the size, growing in the same orchard, will on the 

 average of years produce more money, though the fruit be sold 

 at a less price. 



Having grafted many hundreds of large trees, I find it is the 

 rule, not the exception, that the fruit is larger, higher-coloured, 

 and earlier ripe on regrafted trees than on those of the same 

 kind with old heads. Is this to be wondered at ? Is it not 

 what one ought to expect with a young head on an old root ? 



