64 Editors Letter- Box. 



H. RoBENSON, Auburn, N.Y., would like an article on the strawberry, giving 

 the best varieties for table use. He has a moderate garden, and cultivates for 

 his own taste, and wants the best and most prolific. — We recommend, as com- 

 bining productiveness with good quality, Hovey's Seedling, as the main crop, 

 with about one-tenth the number of Brighton Pine as a fertilizer. Triomphe de 

 Gand, Brooklyn Scarlet, and Jucunda are of fine quality, but more moderate' 

 bearers. Lennig's White is still finer flavored, but a poor bearer. La Constante 

 is of the highest excellence ; but the foliage is apt to burn. Napoleon III. is 

 new and fine, so far as tested. But, whatever you plant, do not fail to leave a 

 place for the President Wilder. As soon as the strawberry season is over, we 

 shall give an article containing the results of this year's experience. The old 

 beds which are so mixed that you cannot select from them had better be dug 

 into the ground. 



K. has seen directions for raising mushrooms by inserting pieces of spawn in 

 a bed, and would like to know what spawn is. — Mushroom-spawn is the root, 

 stem, and branches of the mushroom, or, at least, what corresponds to these 

 parts of other plants ; while the pileus, or eatable part, commonly called the mush- 

 room, answers to the flower and. fruit, bearing the spores, or seeds, upon the 

 gills which radiate from the centre on the under side. If the droppings of a 

 horse, especially one highly fed, are examined after they have lain a short time, 

 there will be found among them tufts of white threads, resembling mould, but 

 tougher and more substantial, running through the dung. This is the mycelium, 

 or spawn, of the mushroom, and is produced from spores taken into the stomach 

 of the horse with his food, and developed by the moisture and warmth of his 

 body. If pieces of this spawn are placed in a bed so prepared as to afford a 

 proper degree of heat and moisture, the thread-like substance will soon be found 

 spread throughout the bed, and from it will grow a crop of muslirooms, which 

 may be of diiTerent species, corresponding to the spores from which it grew. 

 The spawn is usually mixed with clay, and made up into cakes, like bricks, for 

 sale. It will retain its vitality two or three years. 



