VEG KTABLES ML'SHROOIT. 



235 



with the naked eye, and it requires au unusual effort of 

 the imagination to believe the white moldy substance we 

 call spawn to be either plants or roots. There are so 

 many different systems of growing the Mushroom, de- 

 tailed in most of the works on gardening, that the reader 

 is too often bewildered in choosing a guide. In this I 

 will only detail one method, which I have practiced for 

 many years with unfailing success. 



To make the cultivation of the Mushroom profitable, 

 it must be done in a building, either specially erected for 

 the purpose, or in some 

 shed, stable or cellar al- 

 ready on the premises, 

 and which can be con- 

 verted to that use. The 

 most suitable place, in 

 establishments having 

 greenhouses, vineries or 

 forcing pits, are the back 

 sheds, usually erected over 

 the boiler pits, such as are 

 shown in the plans of 

 forcing-pits in this work. 

 But such a structure is 

 not indispensable. Any 

 place where a temperature of from fifty to sixty degrees 

 can be sustained during winter will suit. We have also 

 grown them under the % stages of our greenhouses, but 

 our "modern improvements" of late years allow us no 

 longer room for the operation there. The time of begin- 

 ning may be any time during winter. We have usually 

 begun our preparations about December 1st, which 

 brought our beds into bearing about February 1st, at the 

 season that Mushrooms begin to be most wanted. 



Our method of growing Mushrooms is very simple, and 

 can be accomplished to a certainty by any one conforming 



Fig. 66. MUSHROOMS. 



