CULTURE IN THE OPEN AIR. 79 



into beds soon after it is brought home and before it is 

 allowed to heat, and then the beds are made in the form 

 of potato-pits and beaten very firm. The beds are 

 spawned when at about a temperature of eighty degrees, 

 the pieces of spawn being placed about a foot or so apart, 

 and it is then immediately earthed, the ordinary soil being 

 used, and the bed covered to a thickness of a couple of 

 inches. The success attained by the market- gardeners of 

 both London and Paris, with the ordinary soil of the place 

 in which the beds may be made, well proves the absurdity 

 of seeking for any particular kind of soil for covering 

 mushroom-beds. Beds made in this way in the autumn 

 and winter months, and covered with a thick layer of 

 litter and mats, seldom require any watering. The 

 culture is not usually attempted in summer; the heat 

 acting upon the littery covering giving rise to insects 

 which destroy the mushrooms ; but with care their 

 culture is quite practicable at that season ; in proof of 

 which I may say that during the last week of July, 1868, 

 I saw them gathered freely in a market-garden just 

 beside the Gloucester Road Station of the Metropolitan 

 Railway, where by using a coating of litter about a foot 

 thick, and over that a layer of mats, it was possible to 

 procure them in good condition throughout the hottest 

 summer within memoiy. There are many acres of 

 ground covered with beds made thus in the market- 

 gardens round London. 



