50 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



large party, for which he wanted a quantity of mustard and cress. 

 Two seed pans were sown at night and placed on the flue ; in the 

 morning the seeds were all started, and at night they had as much 

 of each as was required. 



C. H. Brackett was called on to give an account of his method 

 of raising mushrooms, of which he had a fine dish on exhibition. 

 He said that he had had good luck and did not expect to do so 

 well again. He followed the directions given by Peter Henderson 

 in his " Gardening for Profit," except that he did not cover with 

 straw. He tried covering at first, but found that, in gathering, it 

 disturbed the mushrooms. His beds had not been lower than 60° 

 at night. Last year he attempted to raise them in a much higher 

 temperature, and got but few. 



Mr. Hovey said that here was another point in relation to tem- 

 perature. He had also a dish of mushrooms on exhibition which 

 had been raised in a temperature of from 40° to 45°. If they had 

 had as much heat as Mr. Brackett's they would have been gathered 

 by the bushel instead of the dozen, weeks ago. The bed was 

 spawned October 2d ; since then a new boiler, affording more heat, 

 had been put into the house, and after that the mushrooms began 

 to make their appearance. This confirmed the principle to which 

 he had alluded. The more jou force a plant the more you injure 

 it for future usefulness. The lilacs mentioned by Mr. Atkinson 

 were in pots, and not dug up from the open ground. He had 

 forced the same deutzia plants successfully for seven years in suc- 

 cession, but not in a high temperature. The principle applies not 

 only to the undeveloped plant in the seed, but through the whole 

 of its life. 



James Comley was asked to give his experience in raising mush- 

 rooms. He thought 60° to 70° the best temperature, with a bot- 

 tom heat of 65°. A good bed, well made, would last about six 

 weeks, but he thought them very uncertain. He had succeeded 

 only two years out of five. His failures were sometimes owing to 

 having poor spawn ; he had had the beds a mass of spawn, but the 

 mushrooms would not come for months. Last year he had four 

 beds, each six feet by forty, and no mushrooms ; other years he 

 had got three hundred dollars' worth. He used to be troubled a 

 great deal with insects, but watering with a weak solution of salt- 

 petre would destroy them. 



