THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. OFA. 
MUSHROOM GROWING ON A SMALL SCALE. 
BY M. BELTOT. 
==es HE MUSHROOM now occupies a sufficiently important 
place in the culinary art to require its presence in every 
well-stocked kitchen-garden. Not only is it an acces- 
sory serving to flavour all sorts of dishes; but it is the 
—=E— foundation of others most in esteem amongst gourmets. 
The culture is so simple and so easy that it is strange it is not more 
common. Perhaps not enough is known about it—a consideration 
which has induced us to pen this short paper. 
The best position for a mushroom-bed is a dark place, where the 
temperature is always moderate and the light diffused—as a cellar, 
under or above ground, or a stable. Light hinders the growth of 
the cryptogam. Those who gather mushrooms in the fields, find 
that the harvest is always better on mornings after a dark night, 
than when the moon has been full and clear. 
The first requisite is some good dung. Asses’ dung is the best ; 
that of horses and mules next. The latter being most easily pro- 
curable is most generally used. The larger the proportion of 
droppings and urine, and the shorter and more tangled the dung, 
the better. It is put in a heap, and watered to make it ferment ; it 
is forked in layers about eight inches thick, of which four or five are 
laid one atop of the other. When it ferments, which is known by a 
whitish appearance in the interior of the heap, it is forked over 
again, so as to turn the outside portions within, and after ten days 
or so the operation is repeated. At the end of another week, the 
dung will have acquired a brown hue, and will then be ready 
for use. 
The dung must be prepared in the open air before it is taken in 
where the bed is to be made. Tor it should be neither too wet nor 
too dry; that is to say, when a handful is taken up, the moisture 
should not run out of it, but it should be clammy and plastic, taking 
the shape of the hand like wet clay. 
The bed may be formed against a wall; the dung being forked 
on lightly and evenly in layers of equal depth. It may be twenty 
inches broad and as many deep, and should have a slight slope. 
If the place is paved, the bottom of the bed should be laid with 
ten or twelve inches of earth or clay, well rammed, to prevent the 
rats and mice from taking up their abode in it. 
To fertilize the bed, it must be set with mushroom spawn. The 
spawn, or myceliwm, is sold by seedsmen, and as it keeps a long 
time, can generally be procured in good condition. Small holes, two 
inches in diameter and depth, are made on the surface of the heap, 
quincunx fashion, at distances of six inches apart, in each of which 
a small piece of spawn of like diameter is inserted, covered over, and 
lightly pressed down. 
A week later the spawn will be up, when it should be covered 
with some fine soil passed through a sieve. By turns, peat-earth, 
powdered charcoal, and powdered clay have been recommended for 
September, 
