92 POPULAR VEGETABLES 



be spared. The boxes should be a foot deep and, after 

 being filled with manure and placed in position, should 

 be covered over with a bit of dry hay, and an old news- 

 paper nailed down over the box. If the time is spring 

 or summer the boxes will need watering with warm 

 water (luke-warm) at the end of a month, relaying the 

 covering. On examination again in about a fortnight's 

 time the Mushrooms should be making their appear- 

 ance regularly and will do so for six or seven weeks 

 or more. During the winter season in this rather 

 damp position very little watering will be required, and 

 none should be given unless the surface of the soil 

 should appear parched and dry. It must not be sup- 

 posed that there is any offensive smell from these 

 boxes ; they are perfectly sweet and without odour. 



The boxes may be spawned and soiled over im- 

 mediately they are filled, as with a small body of manure 

 like this, there is no danger of overheating if the manure 

 has been properly prepared. 



The Manufacture of Spawn. This is now practi- 

 cally a lost art among private gardeners, Chatsworth 

 being the only private garden where the article is of 

 home manufacture. Better crops of Mushrooms have 

 never been grown anywhere than from the home-made 

 article, one of the reasons for this being that the spawn 

 was fresh every year, and not kept over from the 

 previous season. 



The work of making the spawn is a very simple 

 matter, and once the details are understood, a handy 

 and careful labourer can manage the work splendidly. 



