MUSHROOM-BEDS 



MUSHROOM-BEDS 



9 inches high should be placed as a frontage-board, 

 from 3 to 4 feet distant from the wall, which is a good 

 width for the bottom of the bed. This front board may 

 be supported upright by driving three or four short stakes 

 into the floor. The bed may be from 2 to 3 feet high 

 at the back, sloping down to 9 inches in front,. : which will 

 give a very convenient width to reach over for all neces- 

 sary purposes. Have the materials ready to make the 

 first bed about the last week in August. Let this occupy 

 one-third of the length of the shed. Make up another 

 of the same size about the last week in October, and the 

 remaining third about the ist of January. 



In four or five weeks after spawning, in spring 

 and autumn, the bed should begin to produce, but not 

 until much later in summer and winter ; and if 

 kept dry and warm, it will continue to do so for several 

 months. 



A gathering may take place two or three times a week, 

 according to the productiveness of the bed. It some- 

 times happens that beds will not come into production 

 for five or six months ; they should not, therefore, be 

 impatiently destroyed. 



Watering. In autumn, the bed will not require water 

 until the first crop is gathered, but it is then to be re- 

 peated after every gathering ; a sprinkling only is neces- 

 sary. In spring and summer, during dry weather, the 

 same course is to be pursued. As excessive or unequal 

 moisture is studiously to be avoided, the best mode of 

 applying the water is to pour it through a rose-pan on 

 to a thin layer of hay, which has previously been spread 

 over the bed, and thus allow it to percolate by degrees. 

 In winter, waterings are not allowable ; to keep the 

 mould moist, hot fermenting mulch may be put on 

 outside the covering. If the bed is in the open ground, 

 on a warm day succeeding to wet weather, it may be 

 left uncovered 'for not more than two or three hours. 

 During excessive rains, the additional covering of 

 mats, &c., must be afforded ; and, on the other hand, if 

 a moderate, warm shower occurs during summer, after 

 excessive droughts, it may be fully admitted, by taking 

 off the covering. 



Mode of Gathering. In gathering, the covering being 

 carefully turned off, only such are to be taken as are 

 half an inch or more in diameter before they become 

 flat, but are compact and firm. Old mushrooms, 

 especially, should be rejected for the table, as it is found 

 that some which are innoxious when young become 

 dangerous when tending to decay ; they also then lose 

 much of their flavour. 



Each mushroom is detached by a gentle twist com- 

 pletely to the root ; a knife must never be employed, 

 for the stumps left in the ground decay, and become 

 the nursery of maggots, which are liable to infect the 

 succeeding crop. 



Other Modes of Cultivation. Some gardeners merely 

 vary from the preceding by building entirely of dung, 

 without any layers of earth. Many gardeners grow 

 mushrooms in the same bed with their melons and 

 cucumbers. The spawn is inserted in the mould, and 

 on the hills of the beds, as soon as the burning heat is 

 passed. In September or October, when the bines of 

 the plants decay, the bed is carefully cleaned, the glasses 

 put on and kept close, and when the earth becomes 

 dry, water is frequently but moderately given, as well 

 as every gentle shower admitted when necessary. A 

 gentle heat is thus caused, and the produce is often 

 extraordinarily abundant, frequently two bushels, from 

 a frame 10 feet by 6, and mushrooms have been produced 

 two pounds in weight. 



Hampers or boxes containing about 4 inches depth 

 of fresh, dry stable-dung, or, in preference, of a mixture 

 of three barrow-loads of horse-dung, and one perfectly 

 dry cow-dung, well pressed in, may be set in some 

 situation where neither damp nor frost can enter. After 

 two or three days, or as soon as heat is generated, the 

 spawn may be inserted ; a mushroom brick is to be 

 broken into three equal parts, and each fragment to be 

 laid 4 inches asunder on the surface of the dung ; after 

 six days, ij inch depth of fresh dung to be beaten down 

 as before. In the course of a fortnight, or as soon as it 

 is found that the spawn has run nearly through the 

 whole of the dung, fine earth must be applied 2\ inches 

 thick, and the surface made level. In five or six weeks 

 the mushrooms will begin to come up, and if the mould 

 appear dry, may then be gently watered, the water 



being slightly heated. Each box will continue in pro- 

 duction six or eight weeks. 



Mr. J. Oldaker, late gardener to the Emperor of 

 Russia, introduced a house purposely constructed for 

 the growth of the mushroom. The house is found of 

 great use in storing broccoli during the winter. It is 

 usually built against the back wall of a forcing-house, 

 or wherever convenient ; but if built unconnected with 

 another building, the only necessary alteration is to 

 have a hipped instead of a lean-to roof. The outside 

 wall should be 8 feet high for four heights, the width 

 10 feet within the walls, which is most convenient, as it 

 admits shelves 3$ feet wide on each side, and a space up 

 the middle 3 feet wide, for a double flue, and wall upon it. 



When the outside of the house is finished, a floor or 

 ceiling is made over it, as high as the top of the outside 

 walls, of boards i inch thick, and plastered on the upper 

 side, with road-sand, well wrought together, an inch 

 thick ; square trunks being left in the ceiling, 9 inches 

 in diameter, up the middle of the house, at 6 feet apart, 

 with slides to ventilate with when necessary. 



Two single brick walls, each five bricks high, are 

 then to be erected at 3^ feet from the outside walls, to 

 hold up the sides of the floor-beds, and form at the 

 same time one side of the air flues. Upon these low walls 

 are to be laid planks 4^ inches wide, and 3 inches 

 thick, in which are to be mortised the standards, which 

 support the shelves. These standards to be 3^ inches 

 square, and 4^ feet asunder, fastened at the top, into 

 the wooden ceiling. The cross bearers, which support 

 the shelves, must be mortised into the bearers and 

 into the walls; the first set of bearers being 2 feet 

 from the floor, and each succeeding one to be at the same 

 distance from the one below it. The shelves ought 

 to be of boards ij inch thick, each shelf having a ledge 

 in front, of boards i inch thick and 8 inches deep, to 

 support the front of the beds, fastened outside the 

 standards. The flue to commence at the end of the 

 house next the door, and running the whole length, to 

 return back parallel, and communicate with the chimney ; 

 the walls of the insides to be the height of four bricks 

 laid flat, and 6 inches wide ; this will allow a cavity 

 on each side betwixt the flues, 2 inches wide, to admit 

 the heat from their sides into the house. The middle 

 cavity itself should be covered with tiles, leaving a space 

 of i inch betwixt each. The top of the flue, including 

 the covering, 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 covering 

 the cavity, as before mentioned ; the outside cavities 

 are left uncovered. 



As the compost, the formation of the beds, &c., are 

 very different from the common practice, we will give 

 Mr. 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. 



The beds are to be made by placing a layer of the 

 above compost, 3 inches thick, on the shelves and floor, 

 which must be beaten as close as possible with a flat 

 mallet, fresh layers being added and consolidated until 

 the bed is 7 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 insufficient for the nourishment of the spawn. 

 As soon as the beds intimate a warmth of 80 or 90, 

 they are to be beaten a second time, to render them still 

 more solid, and holes made with a dibble, 3 inches in 

 diameter and 9 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, 2 inches 

 thick, must be added. If this does not increase the 

 heat, part of the beds must be removed, and fresh horse- 

 droppings mixed with the remainder. The spawn is 

 to be inserted in three or four days after making the 

 holes, when the thermometer indicates the desired degree 

 of heat ; the insides of the holes are dry ; and while 

 the heat is on the decline every hole is to be filled, 

 either with lumps or fragments of spawn, well beaten in, 

 and the surface made level. 



In a fortnight, if the spawn is vegetating freely, and 

 the beds are required for immediate production, they 



