J54 



THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



N. Y., whose chief industry is the manu 

 facture of quicklime and hydraulic ce 

 ment. There you find a deserted stone 

 quarry from which millions of tons of 

 carboniferous limestone have been taken 

 out. 



Some fifteen years ago I wrote up my 

 visit to these caves and afterwards I 

 rewrote it, and again after a lapse of 

 time I can recall the chief features of 

 conditions and methods of that industry. 

 You enter the caves on the level at the 

 foot of a slight eminence, rising perhaps 

 twenty feet at its highest point above 

 the surrounding land. In a few seconds 

 you are in dense darkness, but are pro 

 vided with a torch. The .rock has been 

 taken out to about eight feet in thick 

 ness. In many places the strata you are 

 walking on as well as the strata that 

 forms the roof are as smooth as asphalt 

 pavement. After traveling what seems 

 a long walk, but is perhaps only 100 

 yards, the familiar odor of fermenting 

 horse manure reaches your nostrils and 

 soon you are looking at half an acre of 

 mushroom beds, of course in all stages 

 of development. The beds are placed on 

 the rock flooring w y here it is quite dry. 

 They are sixteen feet long and eight feet 

 wide and the manure is ten to twelve 

 inches deep. The beds have the usual 

 covering of loam, but no hay or straw 

 covering; being perfectly dark there is 

 no need of it. The cave covers an area 

 of several acres and near where opera 

 tions are carried on a hole has been 

 bored up through the flint rock above 

 and through the earth covering the rock 

 BO that a team has only to drive up to 

 this hole and dump the material down. 

 The manure is obtained from several 

 neighboring cities by the carload. This 

 I consider a disadvantage, because the 

 growers have no control over its treat 

 ment before shipping, or accidents in 

 the way of rain during transit. The 

 president of the company told me the 

 temperature of the cave did not vary 5 

 degrees summer or winter and the mean 

 temperature for the year was about 58 

 degrees. I asked him when there was the 

 best demand for his products. He re 

 plied in June, July and August, because 

 greenhouse mushrooms were then in 

 fested with maggots and largely out of 

 the market. 



The attempt to grow mushrooms is 

 very fascinating, largely because of its 

 mystery. While many of the opera 

 tions a gardener enters into are gam 

 bles, there is none so much a gamble as 

 raising mushrooms. There is a mystery 

 about it. Yoli may think you know all 

 the essential points and even meet with 

 success for several crops and then you 

 are mystified by a total failure. You 

 have deviated in some slight degree from 

 conditions that were successful and you 

 don t know where, perhaps a little too 

 warm or a little too cold, the bed too 

 dry or too wet, the material fermented 

 too violently and many other causes not 

 evident but sufficient to make the differ 

 ence between success and failure. This 

 should not discourage the man who has 

 made up his mind to grow mushrooms. 

 Keep at it and you will, to use slang, 

 &quot;get the hang of it,&quot; and failure after 



that does not often occur. Many a good 

 thing is made or done without scientific 

 facts, but from a sort of instinctive 

 knowledge and experiment, and that s the 

 knowledge you want in growing mush 

 rooms. 



The literature of the mushroom is aged 

 and extensive. Never mind whether you 

 study Abercrombie s work on the mush 

 room, published in 1779, or London s, 

 written seventy years ago, or contem 

 porary writers on the subject, they all 

 agree on the simple and substantial 

 points, such as proper material, tem 

 perature of the house, depth of bed, 

 covering, time of spawning, etc. All this 

 is easily repeated. The mystery of the 

 thing is to follow and that I believe no 

 man can impart, but experience will 

 teach you and when you have struck it 

 right adhere to it rigidly. Here is what 

 all authors agree on: 



The horse droppings should be col 

 lected daily. If you have the facility 

 to collect quantity enough to put in your 

 desired bed all on one day so much the 

 better. Keep it in a dry shed and turn 

 the whole mass daily for eight to ten 

 days. This is to prevent its violent heat 

 ing. It is then in proper condition to 

 make the bed. Choose a dry bottom al 

 ways and where no drip will occur. 

 Many writers say remove all straw from 

 the manure. In the beds of the caves 

 described they were not at all particular 

 about this and there was considerable 

 straw mixed with the droppings. Some 

 modern writers advocate that at the last 

 turning of the manure an equal amount 

 of good fresh loam be added to the drop 

 pings, equal in weight but not in bulk. 

 As mushrooms were grown for years 

 without the addition of loam we do not 

 believe it a positive essential. Its ob 

 ject is to prevent the bed heating too 

 violently and we would recommend that 

 loam to one-half the weight of the 

 manure be added, and decomposed sod is 

 better than soil from a garden because 

 there would be less danger of dangerous 

 fungi being introduced. Spread two 

 inches of the compost on the floor, or 

 whatever the be d is made on, and with 

 a broad smooth mallet or brick pound 

 down the material till it is quite firm 

 and solid, then add two inches more and 

 firm the same way, adding successive lay 

 ers till the bed is of the desired thick 

 ness or depth. There is little difference 

 of opinion as regards depth of bed, most 

 authors say eight inches, some one foot. 

 If much more than the latter depth too 

 great a heat is likely to be generated. 

 If less than eight inches the heat will 

 be too weak and a small crop will be the 

 result. I think ten inches of uniform 

 depth is about right. 



A thermometer should be sunk a few 

 inches into the bed and it will be found 

 that in two days the heat of the bed will 

 rise to 100 degrees, perhaps more. 

 When the heat is declining is the time 

 to insert the spawn, and 90 degrees 

 is generally agreed as the right tempera 

 ture. A blunt stick or dibble is used 

 and holes three inches deep are made 

 at four or five inches apart over the sur 

 face of the bed. If the spawn is the 

 English, which comes in compact bricks, 



then drop into each hole a piece of the 

 spawn the size of a hen s egg. If the 

 French spawn or material from an old 

 bed, which may be much broken up, then 

 fill the hole half full of the spawn and 

 tamp it firm with a blunt stick, filling 

 up the holes with the same material as 

 the bed. Do nothing more till nine or 

 ten days after spawning, when two 

 inches of good virgin loam should be 

 spread evenly over the bed and beaten 

 down firmly until you have a smooth, 

 even surface. This loam covering is to 

 keep the manure at an equal temperature 

 of heat and prevent dryness. The my 

 celium, or spawn, which should be vege 

 tating before this covering of earth is 

 put on, will soon spread and thickly 

 occupy the covering of loam. The mush 

 room is really the fruit of the mycelium. 

 If your bed is exposed to the light, as 

 it would be beneath a greenhouse bench, 

 then it is usual to cover the bed with 

 two or three inches of hay to exclude 

 the light so as to bleach or whiten the 

 mushrooms. If exposed to light the top 

 may be brown, which would render the 

 mushrooms less attractive or salable. 

 In totally dark situations the covering 

 of hay would be quite unnecessary. 



This completes all there is to say of 

 the modus operandi to produce mush 

 rooms, and as a cautious writer says, in 

 six or seven weeks expect mushrooms. 

 He does not say cut mushrooms, or you 

 will have mushrooms, but expect 

 them. And we can readily believe and 

 know from experience that in many in 

 stances the expecting or anticipation is 

 greater pleasure than the realization. 



One important item remains., and that 

 is watering. If the bed is not exposed 

 to fire heat and the surrounding atmos 

 phere is moderately moist, as it would 

 be in cellars or caves, or even under a 

 greenhouse bench, then seldom will any 

 water be needed till you have cut the 

 first crop of mushrooms, which may last 

 three or four months. After that and 

 after the manure becomes so dry that 

 the mycelium ceases to vegetate, a water 

 ing at a temperature of 80 to 90 degrees 

 will often produce a second crop equal 

 to the first, and in some cases if on 

 examination the bed is found very dry 

 a watering to help the first crop may 

 be necessary. We all know that after 

 a warm August or September shower we 

 expect to find a fine picking in our 

 fields in the morning. It is not so 

 generally known that mushrooms bear 

 seeds or spores innumerable that when 

 ripe and detached from the gills float 

 away to other pastures. 



Not many florists have the opportunity 

 to study or read &quot;London s Encyclo 

 paedia of Gardening.&quot; I am the lucky 

 owner of this great gardening work and 

 prize the volumes greatly, for my father 

 is the author of the article on orchids 

 for Mr. Loudon, at that time little 

 known plants. In his exhaustive article 

 on mushrooms he quotes a score of dif 

 ferent authors and it appeals to me that 

 a few extracts might be amusing or 

 entertaining and maybe instructive. On 

 light he says: &quot;Abercrombie, Nichol and 

 most gardeners and authors consider 

 light as quite unnecessary for the pro- 



