MUSHROOM BEDS. 137 



for good plants of a good sort would fetch a liberal price, that 

 would pay auy one for the care and trouble, only it would be 

 necessary to let every one know where such plants could 

 be had. 



One more use to which hot-beds can be especially applied 

 Avith advantage is, for the close-gi-afting of camellias, rhodo- 

 dendrons, azaleas, and the orange tribe ; the genial moist heat 

 so necessary for these operations cannot be supplied so well 

 by any other means as the common hot-bed will produce it. 

 We have seen, at the late Mr. Eonald's, a hundred and eighty 

 grafts of the Ehododendron campanulatum growing beautifully 

 in a dimg-bed heat of 70 degrees, with the back tilted at the 

 time to admit air and let out steam, and not a single miss 

 among the whole ; and, at another place, as many inarched 

 camellias not cut off as a three-light box would hold ; and, at 

 another time, above a huncbed grafts, with only a single leaf 

 on each, put on mthin fru^o inches of the pot, every one taken, 

 and growing well, at a temperature of 0)6 degrees. Commend 

 us, then, to the common dung hot-bed, as one of the most 

 useful adjuncts to a moderate garden. 



MUSHROOM BEDS. 



We have already given a long account of the best way to 

 make hot-beds, and with it their general management. Per- 

 haps there is not a more valuable department in a garden 

 where the produce is esteemed, than the mushroom bed, be 

 that where it may. Some require such a constant supply of 

 that excellent fungus, that considerable expense is incurred in 

 the erection of a mushroom-house, and various contrivances 

 are resorted to for the purpose of producing them in perfec- 

 tion and abundance. The production of the mushroom is so 

 unhke any other operation in gardening, that a man may be 

 well acquainted ^\ith all the rest of his duties, and be ignorant 

 of this, although the supplying of a considerable family, or 

 even of the market, is now reduced to the most simple rules. 

 While all other garden productions are the result of sowing, 

 or propagating by ordinary means, transplanting, and the 

 like, the mushroom, though unquestionably from seeds which 

 are too small to be preserved or collected, but which are eaten 

 by animals with their food — when all other substances are 

 decomposed, these seeds are left unaltered in their nature and 



