HENDERSON'S HANDBOOK OF PLANTS. 



137 



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made use of at wedding festivities, in token of 



Slenty." The Banana is not known in an uncul- 

 vated state. The wildest tribes in South 

 America, who depend upon this fruit for sub- 

 sistence, propagate the plant by suckers. Eight 

 or nine months after the sucker has been 

 planted, the BaJiana begins to form its clusters, 

 and the fruit is ready for picking in two or 

 three months thereafter. When the stalk is cut, 

 the fruit of which has ripened, a sprout is put 

 forth, which again bears fruit in three months. 

 The whole labor of cultivation that is required 

 for a plantation of Bananas, is to cut the stalks 

 laden with ripe fruit, and to give the plants a 

 slight nourishment once or twice a year by dig- 

 ging round the roots. The yield per acre, with 

 the little or no care bestowed, is between fifty 

 and sixty tons of ripe fruit. The Banana is of- 

 ten cultivated in the green-house. M. Cavendishu 

 is the best for this purpose; it is a dwarf species, 

 from China, rarely growing more than six feet 

 high, and is exceedingly ornamental. In a 

 warm house it ripens its fruit to perfection, and 

 the flavor is far superior to that which is found 

 in our markets, which is picked quite green, and 

 ripened in holds of vessels or in fruit stores. 

 M. Abyssinlm has foliage of magnificent pro- 

 portions, and is sometimes grown on the lawn 

 as an ornamental plant. It is of recent intro- 

 duction. 



Muscari. Grape Hyacinth. From moschos, musk ; 

 the smell of the flowers. Linn. Hexandria-Mono- 

 gynifi. Nat. Ord. L'dificea',. 



A small genus of bulbous plants, with small 

 white or blue globular flowers, in racemes, at 

 the end of a simple stalk. They only require 

 planting where they can remain for many years 

 without transplanting. They are natives of 

 middle Europe and the Mediterranean region. 

 They have become naturalized in many parts of 

 the United States. On the east end of Long Is- 

 land some fields are literally blue with the 

 flowers in early spring. From their peculiar 

 fragrance, the plant is often called " Baby's 

 Breath." 



Mushroom. Agaricus campestris. See Agaricus. 

 The great interest now being taken in Mush- 

 room culture in the United States has induced 

 us to treat the subject as fully as the limits of 

 our space will permit. Mushrooms may be grown 

 either in a house specially erected for the pur- 

 pose, in cellars, out-houses, sheds, under green- 

 house stages, tables, or, as in France and other 

 parts of the world, in caves or other subterrane- 

 ous places, as light is not necessary to their 

 growth. There is a peculiar interest in Mush- 

 room culture to the amateur or beginner, from 

 the fact that, while in all other cultivated plants 

 we have something tangible to start with 

 either plants, seeds, or roots we have neither 

 here, as far as the naked eye can see; for the 

 white mouldy substance called spawn is not 

 easily imagined to be either, though we know, 

 by the use of the microscope, that tho germs or 

 spores are to be found in countless numbers on 

 the "gills" of the fully-developed Mushroom, 

 and these, without doubt, when falling in a con- 

 genial " noil," form the spawn which we plant to 

 develop the Mushroom. But an extended bo- 

 tanical or physiological inquiry is not necessary 

 to the subject of culture. As there is no neces- 

 sity for light in Mushroom culture, the usual 

 method of growing them, where them is a green- 

 house, is to use the sheds used for potting, 

 packing, or for covering tho boiler pits ; and the 



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portion of them used for Mushroom growing is 

 generally four feet from the back wall, starting 

 on the floor of the shed with the first bed, the 

 additional beds being formed of shelving of the 

 same width, and from twelve to fifteen inches 

 deep, raised one above another to the top of the 

 wall, like steamboat sleeping-berths. Of course, 

 if the shed is used for growing Mushrooms ex- 

 clusively, these beds will be formed in the mid- 

 dle and front of the shed, leaving say three feet 

 walks between each tier of Mushroom beds; for 

 example, if the shed is eleven feet wide, it will 

 give two Mushroom beds four feet wide on each 

 side, with a three feet walk in the center; or if 

 twenty-two feet wide, the beds for Mushrooms 

 should be four feet wide at front and rear, with 

 an eight feet bed in the center, and three feefc 

 walks all around, the eight feet bed being ac- 

 cessible from the walks on either side. When a 

 Mushroom bed is made under the green-house 

 bench, the bench must be made of slate or other 

 material, to prevent the water getting through, 

 otherwise Mushrooms could not well be raised 

 under it. The bed must also be formed under 

 such benches as have no pipe or flues tinder 

 them, as the heat from such near to the bed 

 would be hurtful. Where there is a superfluity 

 of cellar-room, there is no better place to raise 

 Mushrooms, as the cool moisture of the atmos- 

 phere and the uniform temperature of the cellar 

 is more congenial to the growth of this vegeta- 

 ble than structures above ground. The beds 

 may be formed of the size and depth above re- 

 commended; or, where portable Mushroom beds 

 are wanted, boxes may be used of the requisite 

 depth and of convenient size. The temperature 

 of the apartment where Mushrooms are to be 

 grown during the winter months should range 

 from 55 to 65, and, consequently, it would be 

 useless to attempt to grow the crop in the win- 

 ter months unless artificial means were used to 

 keep the temperature to that height; for though 

 the manure in the beds were up to 80 when first 

 made, it would only partially raise the tempera- 

 ture of an unheated building in winter. Proba- 

 bly the best time to begin making the beds for a 

 crop wanted in winter is during August and 

 September, as at that season the temperature is 

 high enough to cause the spawn to germinate 

 freely, so that the first beds made in August will 

 give the first crop during December; those in 

 September, in January or February; and so on. 

 The following plan, given in our work, " Gar- 

 dening for Profit," has been extensively prac- 

 ticed for the past fifteen years, with rare in- 

 stances of failure, even by those who never be- 

 fore attempted the culture of the Mushroom : 

 "Let fresh horse droppings be procured from 

 the stables each day, in quantity not less, per- 

 haps, than a good barrowful. To every barrow - 

 load of droppings add about the same weight 

 (which will be a little less than one-third in bulk) 

 of fresh loam from a pasture, or sod land of any 

 kind, in fact, that has not been manured; the 

 danger of old manured soil being, that it may 

 contain spurious fungi. Let the droppings and 

 soil be mixed together day by day as the drop- 

 pings can bo procured. If they can be had all 

 at once in quantity enough,' so much tho better. 

 Let the heap be turned every day, so that it is 

 not allowed to heat violently, until you have got 

 enough to form the bed of the dimensions re- 

 quired. Be careful that you keep it under cover, 

 so that it cannot possibly get wet. Now, from 

 the prepared heap of droppings and soil, spread 



