October 2, I860. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



363 



hand, bristling with young sprouts, and what they might take 

 would scarcely be missed. Theso young Cabbages, sprouting 

 from tho old stem, are very nice, and especially in such a drip- 

 ping season as the present ; but a young Colewort from a BOW 

 ing early in May, just when tho heart is becoming firm and 

 a little yellow, we consider more sweet and tender still, and 

 therefore we think it good to have several successions! plant- 

 ings of them in summer to como in from August to spring if 

 the winter bo at all moderate. 



Mushrooms. — This dripping weather, with little sun, has been 

 unfavourable for the drying of the Mushroom spawn, alluded 

 to last week, and left in an open shod. We may be obliged to 

 take it to an open place under glass, such as the orchard-h' >u:-e. 

 to make it dry enough for spawning and working. In the open 

 outside shed cleaned the first part of the bed of all litter with 

 a soft broom, watered with manure water, and covered again 

 with a little dry hay, as that bed is not by any means exhausted. 

 The slight covering keeps tho temperature more equable, 

 and also secures a certain degree of moisture in the air im- 

 mediately over the bed, which is a favourable condition for 

 the growth of most of the fungus family. Swept also over the 

 surface of the second piece, in which the Mushrooms are peep- 

 ing up, and covered again with rough dry hay, which we 

 generally save from the pleasure grounds. The object of 

 sweeping is to keep the surface smooth and hard, as otherwise 

 the spawn would be apt to run into the roughish surface of 

 litter. In a house heated by any of the usual modes, and 

 with tho means of securing a moist atmosphere, such coverings 

 are not so much required, the beds are a prettier sight when 

 in bearing, and the cleaning of the surface will not be needed ; 

 but, even in such a case, when we want a bed quickly in, the 

 covering is of much assistance by securing moisture next 

 the bed, and an equable temperature. One objection to the 

 covering of hay or litter is, that if more than one person go to 

 gather from the bed the young button Mushrooms are apt to 

 be displaced when you do not want them. This could be 

 avoided and more neatness secured by having some rods fixed 

 C inches above the bed, and the space covered with a cloth or 

 drugget. Even a thin cloth or mat would answer if there were 

 a sprinkling of hay over the Mushrooms. By lifting up a piece 

 of the cloth you could see at once where to gather. As we have 

 been blamed now and then for not giving reasons for particular 

 modes of practice, and as many object to covering their Mush- 

 room-beds when it can be done without, we would say that on 

 the whole we like the practice, and our reasons for adopting 

 it are the securing something like regularity of moisture and 

 temperature at the surface of the beds. 



Mushroom house. — This we have had smoked twice after 

 closely shutting up, by burning each time about '2 lbs. of sulphur 

 in it. We do not think that much having life would retain it 

 after that. This is a simple lean-to house at the back of a 

 vinery. The sloping roof is smooth-plastered, and when dry, 

 many years ago, it was brushed over with oil, to prevent the 

 moisture acting on the plaster, and rotting the laths, &e. The 

 place between the plaster and the wood and slates was stuffed 

 with straw, to keep cold and heat out. We would like to oil the 

 ceiling again to preserve the roof. As soon as practicable we 

 shall scrub all the walls and sparred wooden shelves with a 

 rough hard broom, and then will limewash the brick walls. 

 Owing to such precautions we have seldom any trouble with 

 our earlier beds, but in the case of late beds we are troubled 

 with woodlice and snails, notwithstanding all our care, and 

 these, no doubt, come in them with the manure and soil, and 

 roots of Sea-kale and Rhubarb. 



We see no chance of obtaining droppings enough even for a 

 bed or two in this house, and, therefore, we have had a lot of 

 long litter, with some droppings in it, thrown into a heap, and 

 well watered to make it decompose ; and that, turned once or 

 twice until it is about half sweetened, will do very well for the 

 main staple of a bed, or beds, with a few droppings on the 

 surface. 



We forgot to say that we have spawned the third piece in 

 the open shed, and in a day or two, finding -all right, we 

 earthed it up and covered the surface of the bed. This we 

 expect will begin to bear about the first week in November, 

 and will be followed by the first bed in the house. From the 

 beds in the shed, however, we generally have some gatherings 

 throughout the winter, if we do not turn them out as manure 

 for the ground. As for ourselves, we have not seen a Mush- 

 room in the pastures this season. We suppose there has been 

 too much rain, otherwise the close moist atmosphere ought to 

 have been peculiarly favourable for Mushrooms. 



Cucumbers. — Banked-up frames to keep them in| bearing 

 until those turned out in the heated pit: begin to conic in. Our 

 out-door Cucumbers did little good this season. They do so 

 well about Sandy and Biggleswade in the open field, sown in 

 rows, that we wished to try them ; but here we would prefer 

 falling back on the old plan of giving them a rough hotbed 

 below their routs to start them with. 



/ 'nbimehj Work. — There are few gardens in which work cannot 

 be so arranged as to secure the comfort and health of the work- 

 men. Where garden men are often seen at work, with their 

 clothes drenched do the skin, and clinging about them, there is 

 evidence either of great want of consideration and carelessness 

 on the part of the manager, or most mistaken views of sound 

 policy mii the part of the employers or proprietors. V.'e have 

 known cases in which horses and cattle were brought in, weU 

 dried, and comfortably housed, whilst the farm men were 

 turned out to clear ditches and water-courses, and the garden 

 men to mow or trench. The first of these operations, clearing 

 water-courses, will often be necessary in the worst weather, 

 but the men engaged in such work should have the opportunity 

 either of drying, or rather shifting their clothes, as soon as 

 possible. We have mowed for days with the water gurgling 

 out of our shoes at every step, the rains literally going in at 

 the neck and out at the heels ; but what good or benefit could 

 accrue from such a system to any of the parties concerned? 



We have heard such a system defended, by young gentlemen 

 especially, as good for making young men hardy, asserting that 

 they themselves have been drenched repeatedly, and pretty 

 well all day, when out shooting, and never felt any harm from 

 such a practice. Circumstances very much alter cases and 

 their consequences. We have read long ago of northern 

 mothers, who, to secure the hardiness of their offspring, broke 

 a bole large enough in the thick ice in order that their babes 

 might have a cold enough dip in the early morning, and 

 they, probably, gained their object in those that survived ; but 

 history says nothing of the numbers of the more weakly that 

 succumbed under the hardening process. However uncomfort- 

 able wet clothes are when clinging to the body, however 

 dangerous they are at times, when by a rapid evaporation of 

 the collected moisture the body is inordinately cooled, the 

 danger is reduced to a minimum so long as the body is kept in 

 constant exercise, and dryness is secured when the body is in 

 a state of comparative repose. 



Just contrast here for a moment the voluntarily imposed 

 labours of a sportsman in a wet day, and the necessity of 

 working through the allotted hours in the ease of the farm or 

 garden labourer in similar weather. In the first place, as the 

 time of the sportsman is his own, in the common acceptation 

 of the term, he can leave off when he chooses, and if he must 

 stop for refreshment, he can do all that is needful in a few 

 minutes, and commence walking again. The labourer must 

 keep to the allotted hours of work ; and mealtimes, from his 

 sitting or reposing, are to him great sources of danger. And 

 again, the sportsman when he reaches home, not to speak of a 

 bath, can at least at once divest himself of his wet clothes, 

 give plenty of friction to the skin, encase himself in dry 

 apparel, and enjoy himself in such comfortable circumstances 

 that the actual soaking may be attended, by the contrast, with 

 something like a newly-discovered pleasure. How few la- 

 bourers are so well off as to be able thus to change their clothes. 

 How few young gardeners are there who could do so, especially 

 if two or" more wet days succeeded each other. How few are 

 there who live in lodgings that could expect to have their wet 

 clothes comfortably dried ; and not a few have known the 

 sensation of putting on in the morning the wet undried clothes 

 they had taken off the previous night. Need we wonder that 

 healthy young gardeners who passed through such ordeals in 

 their youth have become prematurely old, or that the seeds of 

 rheumatism, lumbago, sciatica, and other evils should be so 

 thickly sown broadcast in the system, as to yield a plentiful 

 harvest of pains and penalties at the early period of from forty 

 to fifty years of age ? 



Thanks to growing intelligence and increased benevolence, 

 there is less and less to be seen of such untimely employment, 

 and in most places none at all, unless when some particular 

 object is to be gained, and must, if possible, be accomplished 

 in a definite time, and measures can in such solitary instances 

 be taken to guard against all injurious consequences. In- 

 stances of such ill-timed labour will continue, however, to 

 present themselves until, 



First, all such instances are generally considered the result 

 of want of consideration and a deficiency of thoughtful fore- 



