VOL. XLIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 33 



putrefied by the rain, and moisture of the dung in the bed, he found animalcula 

 discoverable only by the third magnifier, floating in the liquor, squeezed out 

 from it : from which he thinks it evident, that the dangerous consequences which 

 history has informed us to have attended the eating of mushrooms, have not 

 arisen from any poisonous quality essential to them, but from the accidental 

 ova or animalcula, which the richness of their nutriment has allured to them, and 

 which their contiguity to the ground, and the places they arc produced in, render 

 them obnoxious to. 



It may not be amiss to subjoin a short account of the culture in the kitchen- 

 garden of a plant which contributes so much to the delicacy of polite tables, which 

 may be depended on, from personal trial and success ; as those few writers on 

 the subject, not being acquainted with the true mushrooms, are not entirely to 

 be depended on. 



In the melonry, or place allotted in the garden for hot-beds, the mushrooms 

 must be thus ordered : having marked out a portion of ground one yard and a 

 half broad, and of any length, as the ground will pemnit ; fasten two sticks at 

 each end of the diametrical distance already marked out, which shall, by inclining 

 to each other on the top, form an isosceles triangle. To the breadth and height 

 of these sticks must the bed be made, of old, rich, dry dung, closely trodden to- 

 gether : neither new nor moist dung is proper ; for the mushroom being naturally 

 of a succulent and spongy contexture, too much heat, and too much moisture, 

 must necessarily injure it. Having raised the bed to the height and breadth pro- 

 posed, cover it with fine screened mould, to the thickness of 3 inches, into 

 which, at proper distances, put either that white fibrous substance, which may 

 be collected from the place where mushrooms have formerly grown ; or else water 

 it with water in which the chives and parings of mushrooms have been steeped ; 

 or you may put in the chives in gross. If you take the first away, the mushroom 

 is propagated by transplantation ; that white fibrous substance, already men- 

 tioned, being no other than the stolones of old mushrooms, from which others 

 are propagated, like potatoes : if you take the second, that is, by watering, the 

 seeds lodged in the parings, being, by the water, separated from the siliquae, and 

 with it poured on the mould, are that which gives fertility to the beds thus ma- 

 naged. If you put the chives in gross into the mould, it is no more than sowing 

 the seed in the pods, as in other plants it is sometimes necessar}' to do. Over 

 the bed, thus prepared, must constantly be kept a covering of long new litter, to 

 the thickness of one foot, to preserve the plant from the frost, the sun, and the 

 wind. During the middle of summer, and the extremity of winter, it is best to 

 make these beds under shelter ; but at other times they are best exposed, the 

 warm rains not a little contributing to their fertility ; which, by the sloping fashion 

 of the beds, are suffered to moisten them no more than necessary. 



VOL. IX. F 



