MUS 



[ 554] 



MUS 



feet by six, and mushrooms have been 

 produced two pounds in weight. 



Hampers or boxes containing about 

 four inches depth of fresh, dry stable- 

 dung, or, in preference, of a mixture of 

 three barrow-loads of horse-dung, and 

 one perfectly dry cow-dung, well pressed 

 in, may be set in some situation where 

 neither damp nor frost can enter. After 

 two or three days, or as soon as heat is 

 generated, the spawn may be inserted ; a 

 mushroom brick is to be broken into 

 three equal parts, and each fragment to 

 be laid four inches asunder on the sur- 

 face of the dung ; after six days, an inch 

 and a half depth of fresh dung to be 

 beaten down as before. In the course of 

 a fortnight, or as soon as it is found that 

 that the spawn has run nearly through 

 the whole of the dung, fine earth must 

 be applied two inches and a half thick, 

 and the surface made level. In five or 

 six weeks the mushrooms will begin to 

 come up, and if the mould appear dry, 

 may then be gently watered, the water 

 being slightly heated. Each box will 

 continue in production six or eight weeks. 



Mr. J. Oldaker, late gardener to the 

 Emperor of Russia, introduced a house 



purposely constructed for the growth of 

 the mushroom. The house is found of 

 great use in storing brocoli during the 

 winter. It is usually built against the 

 back wall of a forcing-house, as in the 

 annexed plan ; but if built unconnected 

 with another building, the only necessary 

 alteration is to have a hipped instead of 

 a lean-to roof. The outside wall, o H, 

 should be eight feet and a half high for 



four heights, the width ten- feet within 

 the walls, which is most convenient, as it 

 admits shelves three feet and a half wide 

 on each side, and a space up the middle 

 three feet wide, for a double flue, arid 

 wall upon it. 



When the outside of the house is 

 finished, a floor or ceiling is made over 

 it, as high as the top of the outside walls, 

 of boards one inch thick, and plastered 

 on the upper side, e e, with road-sand, 

 well wrought together, an inch thick ; 

 square trunks,/, being left in the ceiling, 

 nine inches in diameter, up the middle 

 of the house, at six feet apart, with slides, 

 s, to ventilate with when necessary. 



Two single brick walls, v v, each five 

 bricks high, are then to be erected at 

 three feet and a half from the outside 

 walls, to hold up the sides of the floor- 

 beds, a a, and form at the same time one 

 side of the air flues. Upon these walls, 

 v v, are to be laid planks four inches and 

 a half wide, and three inches thick, in 

 which are to be mortised the standards, 

 k /c, which support the shelves: These 

 standards to be three inches and a half 

 square, and four feet and a half asunder, 

 fastened at the top, k A, into the ceiling. 

 The cross bearers, i i, i i, which support 

 the shelves, o o, must be mortised into 

 the bearers and into the walls; the first 

 set of bearers being two feet from the 

 floor, and each succeeding one to be at 

 the same distance from the one- below it. 

 The shelves, o e, are to be of boards one 

 inch and a half thick, each shelf having 

 a ledge in front, of boards one inch 

 thick and eight inches deep, to support 

 the front of the beds, fastened outside 

 the standards. The flue to commence at 

 the end of the house next the door, and 

 running the whole length, to return back 

 parallel, and communicate with the chim- 

 ney; the walls of the insides to be the 

 height of four bricks laid flat,and six inches 

 wide ; this will allow a cavity, t, on each 

 side betwixt the flues, two inches wide, to 

 admit the heat from their sides into the 

 house. The middle cavity, x y, should 

 be covered with tiles, leaving a space of 

 one inch betwixt each. The top of the 

 flue, including the covering, should not 

 be higher than the walls that form the 

 fronts of the floor-beds. The wall itself 

 is covered with three rows of tiles, the 

 centre one covering the cavity, x y, as 

 before mentioned ; the outside cavities, 

 1 1, are left uncovered. 



