MUSHROOM. 185 



years, more or less, according to the season. After 

 a warm dry summer, and an early moist autumn, 

 mushrooms are always plentiful, but scarce when 

 such seasons are cold and wet. 



Mushrooms are often observed to grow to a 

 very large size. One of the very best quality was 

 gathered, some time ago at Brigg, in Lincolnshire, 

 which measured three feet four inches in circum- 

 ference, and the girth of the stalk was five inches 

 and a half: it was two inches in thickness, and 

 weighed twenty-nine ounces. There were six others 

 nearly the same weight. 



Culture. In the cultivation of any other vege- 

 table we either sow or plant something material, a 

 slip or root, which we both see and handle ; but in 

 the culture of mushrooms we neither sow nor plant 

 any thing visible, at least to the naked eye. Yet it 

 is certain that mushrooms are produced by seed, 

 which certainly vegetates in the fields at certain 

 periods, either more or less, according to the sea- 

 sons, which have been noticed before. 



Various have been the methods advised for raising 

 the mushroom, which of late years have been so 

 simplified, that the cottager, with very little trouble, 

 may not only regale himself with them throughout 

 the year, but make the raising of them a source of 

 profit, as they may be made to vegetate artificially 

 at any season, either in dry warm cellars, sheds, or 

 such like places in the dark, by a certain process, 

 and by a composition, of which the dung of certain 

 animals forms the chief ingredient ; that ingredient 

 is spawn, on the goodness and strength of which, in 

 whatsoever way it is made, depends the crop. Con- 



