370 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



where the best grapes grown are not, within my knowledge, 

 surpassed for size, abundance, and flavor. So, at least, I thought 

 them before I left home ; but in my long exile, in order to keep 

 down a dreadful homesickness that sometimes makes sleep 

 almost as much a strange* to my pillow as though it was stuifed 

 with McAdam s angular stones, I try to think, like the fox in the 

 fable, that the American grapes are sour. But I cannot do it. 

 Affections, which no time nor distance can quench or abate, 

 defy every such idle effort ; and memory returns, with all its 

 sensibilities quickened, and all its delicious colorings heightened 

 and embellished, to triumph over the impotence of the reso 

 lution. 



There is another article abounding in the markets here, which, 

 though by no means unknown in the markets of the United 

 States, is not common ; and therefore, from the same intelligent 

 gardener, I shall give the best account I could obtain of the mode 

 of cultivating them. I mean, mushrooms. There are few exten 

 sive gardens without a mushroom-house, which is a dark room 

 fitted up with shelves, and with the means of producing the 

 desired temperature. 



&quot; The cultivation of mushrooms in the winter months, in 

 order to have a daily supply, requires a house for the purpose. 

 The house at Welbeck is divided into four tiers of shelves, 

 three shelves in each tier. The shelves are ten inches deep, 

 [that is, a sort of boxes, like the berths on board ship. H. C.] 



&quot; The first three shelves are generally filled about the begin 

 ning of September, as the field mushrooms begin to go out then. 

 The material used to fill the shelves is pure horse-dung drop 

 pings, without any straw. It is suffered to ferment a little before 

 being put in, and beaten quite hard with a wooden mallet. As 

 soon as the heat decreases to 65 by the thermometer, or ascer 

 tained by a piece of wood thrust in, to see that the burning heat 

 is gone off, the bed may be spawned, by opening holes two 

 inches deep in the dung, and putting in bits of spawn about the 

 size of a walnut, nine inches each way, all over the bed. It is 

 then covered with two or three inches of good fresh loam from 

 a pasture field. If a little road-scrapings is added to the loam, it 

 helps to bind it, which is important, as a great deal of the success 

 of the crop depends on the soil and dung being incorporated into 

 one solid mass, not liable to crack, or get too dry. The soil 



