KITCHEN GARDEN. 199 



become yellow, and carry it into the barn, where it 

 may remain, covered with straw, for a month. At 

 the end of this time it will be fit to thresh ; and this 

 should be done on cloths, and not with flails, since 

 these would bruise and break the seed ; but with 

 bunches of rods. Passed two or three times through 

 a -fanning mill, it will be lit for use; and the sooner 

 it is used after cleaning, the better mustard it will 

 make.* 



The MUSHROOM (Agaricus of Lin., Fungus of Tour.). 

 The latter of these botanists numbers not fewer 

 than seventy-five plants of this genus, differing from 

 each other in colour, in smell, and in the size, form, 

 and number of their heads or chapeaux ; and With- 

 ering, if we do not mistake, makes them to amount 

 to more than two hundred. To describe, or even 

 to name them, would be an unprofitable task, and 

 entirely beside the object of the present work ; as of 

 the whole number, the Agaricus Campestris, or Fun- 

 gus Sativus Equinus, is the only species admitted 

 into garden culture. 



This plant is propagated from the seeds only: 

 which are threads or fibres of a white colour, found 

 in old pasture grounds, in masses of rotten horse- 

 dung, sometimes under stable floors, and frequently 

 in the remains of old hotbeds. They are also al- 

 ways to be met with on the growing plant, some- 

 times on the upper, at others on the under surface, 

 and oftener in the interior. Their extreme small- 

 ness makes them difficult to detect ; but, by placing 

 the plant on ice, and enclosing it for a day or two, 

 they may be readily discovered, and will be found 

 to be semeniform, and in this respect differing from 

 the seeds of all other vegetables, and even raising 

 a doubt whether the mushroom does not partake 

 more of the animal than of the vegetable charac- 

 ter. Nor is this fact the only one that warrants 



* Its duration seems to be limited to two years ; older than 

 this, it is rarely good. Bosc. 



