68 GARDENING 



buttons, cups, and broilers— each used for differ- 

 ent culinary purposes. ' Buttons ' when the cap 

 is united to the stalk and the gills are not visible ; 

 they vary from the size of a nut to that of a 

 walnut. ' Cups ' are buttons in a further advanced 

 stage, just showing a ring of the gills half an inch 

 in diameter ; and ' broilers ' when they are fully ex- 

 panded, showing all the gills plainly. A little book, 

 called ' Mushrooms for the Million,' published at 

 the ' Journal of Horticulture,' by J. Wright, is a 

 little book that should be in the hands of every 

 grower of mushrooms who means to make their 

 culture pay. 



One of the largest mushrooms that has ever been 

 seen, weighing not less than twenty-nine pounds, 

 was lately on view in the window of a small restau- 

 rant in the Rue St. Antoine, Paris. It grew to this 

 size in forty-eight hours in the quarries of Porche- 

 ville, which are devoted to the cultivation of mush- 

 rooms in the Seine-et-Oise Department. 



Slugs and snails are great enemies to mush- 

 rooms, and often at night may be discovered with 

 the aid of a lantern, and then caught. J. Wright 

 recommends brewers' grains or bran being placed 

 in heaps near the beds, as, if examined after dark, 

 they will be found covered with snails, and if these 

 be covered with salt they will do no further damage. 



Wood-lice are also troublesome. If pieces of 

 parsnip boiled in a solution of arsenic are placed 

 in flower pots close to the beds, the wood-lice will 

 eat them greedily, but of course these must not be 

 put where there are fowls, &c. 



When mushrooms are the size of buttons, and 

 cease swelling and rot, a fungus has taken posses- 

 sion of them, and can only be destroyed by clearing 



