102 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



point, so far as I know, in mushroom growing. Have it moist, 

 throughout, but never wet. Prepare it under cover, safe from 

 rain and the drying influence of sun and wind. Turn it repeatedly 

 till its rank smell and violent heat subside, but don't let it rot up 

 too much. Above all things don't let it burn or become " fire- 

 fanged." Spread it out to cool and throw it together to warm up. 

 We now use more straw in the manure than formerly because the 

 spawn runs more readily in it ; remember it should be stable- wetted, 

 not hose-wetted, straw. 



As a rule the beds are a board deep, that is seven inches of 

 packed manure with one or two inches of loam on the top. When 

 the beds are made up we cover them with rank straw from the 

 manure to arrest the condensed moisture, and even after spawning 

 and moulding over, we keep the beds still covered with hay or 

 straw to preserve the moisture in them. 



It is just as easy to grow mushrooms on a small scale for home 

 use, as it is to grow flowers, or strawberries, or potatoes, and 

 comparatively with no more expense ; in fact, when we do the 

 work ourselves, we don't reckon any expense, and we reap a 

 delicious luxury for our pains. 



Most market gardeners and florists make mushrooms a catch crop. 

 Those who make it a main crop, however, are getting up special 

 facilities for it. For instance, Mr. Charles L. Hill, of Geary 

 street, San Francisco, who has a large fruit-canning factory some 

 miles out of the city, has also in connection with it, what he calls 

 a "mushroom factory," which consists of ranges of sheds filled 

 with beds. His object in starting this mushroom place was to have 

 something to can in winter. He came to see me last summer and 

 told me about it. His mushroom houses are so arranged that he 

 does the work by machinery. He loads and unloads the manure by 

 machinery, and runs it into and out of his sheds on little railroad 

 cars, thus very greatly reducing expenses. And as he has an 

 abundance of steam power from his adjoining factory, his ideas of 

 doing the nuishroom work by machinery are only in embryo. 

 Our farmers unload their hay by machinery, and why not the 

 mushroom grower liis manure? The contractor fills his gravel-cars 

 by steam shovels, why should not the mushroom-grower turn his 

 manure by power? F. R. Pierson & Co., of Scarborough, N. Y., 

 have a cut flower rose-growing establishment of over fifty thousand 

 square feet of glass, and the roses are all planted in raised 



