SEPT.] KITCHEN VEGETABLES,' . 115 



plentiful, a bed of considerable dimensions may be 

 made and finished within five or six weeks. In as 

 many more weeks, if in a stable or dry cellar, or a 

 flued shed, it will begin to produce, and often 

 sooner ; but if the situation of the bed be cold, it 

 will sometimes be two or three months of producing 

 mushrooms. 



Of xvatering the Mushroom Beds. 



In any situation, the bed must have no water till 

 the spawn begins to rmn. When you would know 

 this, thrust in your hand a few inches deep, in dif<= 

 ferent parts of the bed, and examine what you bring 

 up. It ought to smell exactly of mushrooms, and 

 have the appearance of sm.all bits of thread. But 

 generally you will be forewarned of the spawn's 

 running, by a previous crop of spurious fungi, which 

 rise more or less abundantly, according to the fine- 

 ness or grossness of the materials of which the bed 

 is composed. These fungi generally are either what 

 are called pipes or balls ; and sometimes a kind of 

 mushroom, of a very bad sort, thin, fiat, with w^hite 

 or pale yellow gills. They have all, however, a nau- 

 seous, sickly smell, and may readily be distinguish- 

 ed from the true mushroom, which is thick, hemi- 

 spherical, with brown or reddish gills. 



When you have thus ascertained that the spawn 

 is fully formed, give the bed two or three hearty 

 waterings, in order to set it a growing ; for otlier- 

 wise, it will lie dormant, and show no symptom of 

 vegetation. Give just as much v;ater (but by no 



H ^ 



