putting on a saucer to cool. Always cover the jars with strong paper 

 while hot. About six ounces of preserved ginger, cut very small, 

 improves it, but darkens it. 



MUSHROOM i Agaricuscampestris.) Cultivation. The mushroom 

 can be successfull : cultivated in pots, boxes, or beds, either out of 

 doors, or in a shed or cellar, during the autumn and winter months. 

 The beds are made of fresh horse-dung, which must be dried and 

 fermented until the violent heat is gone, before being used. When 

 ready, the material should be made into a bed four feet wide and a 

 foot deep, beaten extremely hard with a rammer or mallet, and left 

 until the heat is steady at sixty or seventy degrees, when pieces of 

 spawn, about the size of walnuts, should be inserted about an inch 

 deep, and eight or nine inches apart, all over the bed, which must 

 then be covered to a depth of three inches with soil, such as the 

 mushroom naturally grows in, well beaten with the back of the 

 spade, and, if out of doors, should be covered with a good thickness 

 of hay. The soil should not be allowed to become dry, nor ever 

 very wet ; therefore something should be at hand to ward off heavy 

 rains if out of doors. Mushrooms may be expected in six or seven 

 weeks from the time of spawning, and a good bed will last for two 

 or three months. In gathering the crop, the stalks should be pulled 

 completely out, otherwise they rot and destroy the youn^ brood. 

 Beforelthe month of April, while the weather is warm, the bed may be 

 made in a trench, dug six inches deep, in dry and well-drained ground. 



MUSTARD (Sinapis alba.} Cultivation. Mustard for salad may 

 be grown tinder a variety of circumstances both indoors and outside. 

 During the hot weather it should be sown in a shady place. It may be 

 grown in pots or boxes in the dwelling-house, or on the windowsill, 

 or even on a piece of woollen cloth kept moist. Any kind of light 

 soil will suffice, as water alone will enable it to grow large enough 

 for use. The treatment recommended for cress will equally apply to 

 mustard. The seed should be sown about a week later than cress. 



Oxiox (Alluim cepa.} Cultivation. To produce good crops of 

 onions, ground of a deep loamy nature should be selected ; it re- 

 quires to be well worked and manured. Onions may be trans- 

 planted, or the seed may be sown where the plants have to remain. 

 When required early, the seed may be sown in April, though June 

 is considered the best month to sow for transplanting. For that 

 purpose the seed should be sown in wide drills or beds, and kept 

 free from weeds until fit to transplant. For bulbing on the ground 

 where sown, the month of August is a suitable time. Sow the seeds 

 in drills a foot apart, and thin to six inches. As some of those 

 transplanted are likely to start for seed, the flower-heads must be 

 pinched off as soon as they appear. For pickling onions, seed of 

 the silver-skinned varieties should be sown in August, rather thickly 

 in drills, and left unthinned. For salad the seed may be sown 

 whenever required, providing the soil is watered and shaded should 

 the weather be dry. 



