MU S 



386 



M U S 



apart, vvith slides, s, to ventilate with 

 when necessary. 



Fig. 102. 



When the outside of the house is j the standards. The flue to commence 

 finished, a floor or ceiling is made over ! at the end of the house next the door, 

 it, as high as the top of the outside 1 and running the whole length to return 

 walls, of boards one inch thick, and i back paralleled, and communicate with 

 plastered on the upper side, e tf, with the chimney; the walls of the insides 

 road sand, well wrought together, an to be the height of four bricks laid flat, 

 inch thick; square trunks,/, being leltiand six inches wide; this will allow a 

 in the ceiling nine inches in diameter,} cavity, f, on each side betwixt the flues, 

 up the middle of the house, at six feet ; two inches wide, to admit the heat from 



their sides into the house. The middle 

 cavity, x i/, should be covered with tiles, 

 leaving a space of one inch betwixt each. 

 The top of the flue, including the co- 

 vering, should not be higher than the 

 walls that form the fronts of the floor 

 beds. The wall itself is covered with 

 three rows of tiles, the centre one co- 

 vering the cavity x y, as before men- 

 tioned, the outside cavities, / t, are left 

 uncovered. 



As the compost, the formation of the 

 beds, &c., are very difl^erent from the 

 common practice, I shall give a con- 

 nected view ofMr. Oldaker's directions. 

 The compost employed is fresh horse- 

 dung, which has been subject neither 

 to wet nor fermentation, cleared of the 

 long straw, but one-fourth of the short 

 litter allowed to remain, with one-fourth 

 of dry turf mould, or other fresh earth : 

 this enables the bed to be made solid 

 and compact, which is so congenial to 

 the growth of mushrooms. 



The beds are to be made by placing 

 a layer of the above compost, three 

 inches thick, on the shelves and floor, 

 which must be beat as close as possible 

 with a flat mallet, fresh layers being 

 added and consolidated until the bed is 

 seven inches thick, and its surface as 

 level as possible. If the beds are 

 thicker, the fermentation caused will 

 be too powerful ; or, if much less, the 

 heat will be insiifticient for the nourish- 

 ment of the spawn. As soon as the 

 beds intimate a warmth of 80^ or 90", 

 they are to be beat a second time to 

 render them still more solid, and holes 

 made with a dibble, three inches in 

 diameter and nine apart, through the 

 compost, in every part of the beds; 

 these prevent too great a degree of 

 heat arising and causing rottenness. 



If the beds do not attain a proper 

 heat in four or five days after being put 

 together, another layer, two inches 

 thick, must be added. If this does not 

 increase the heat, part of the beds must 

 be removed and fresh horse-droppings 

 mixed vvith the remainder. The spawn 



Two single brick walls, v v, each five 

 bricks high, are then to be erected at 

 three feet and a half from the outside 

 walls, to hold up the sides of the floor 

 beds, a a, and form at the same time 

 one side of the air flues. Upon these 

 walls, V V, are to be laid planks four 

 inches and a half wide and three inches 

 thick, in which are to be mortised the 

 standards, I k, which support the 

 shelves. These standards to be three 

 inches and a half square, and four feet 

 and a half asunder, fastened at the top, 

 k k, into the ceiling. The cross bearers, 

 i i,i i, which support the shelves, o o, 

 must be mortised into the bearers and 

 into the walls; the first set of bearers 

 being two feet from the floor, and each 

 succeeding one to be at the same dis- 

 tance from the one below it. The 

 shelves, o o, are to be of boards one 

 inch and a half thick ; each shelf hav- 

 ing a ledge in front, of boards one inch 

 thick, and eight inches deep, to support 

 the front of the beds, fastened outside 



