KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. CHAP. 



at the sides, for there you will want it to be perfectly 

 even and firm. Having finished it, you will guard it from 

 rains and from the sun by covering it over with long 

 straw, old thatch, or mats -, for it must be neither too 

 wet nor too dry. Let it remain in this way a week, or 

 till you find, by forcing your fore-finger down into it, 

 that the heat is moderate. Then put on a layer of fresh 

 mould to about an inch thick. In this you will stick little 

 pieces of spawn of mushrooms at about eight inches 

 apart every way. Cover over these with mould to about 

 another inch in thickness, and pat it down nicely with a 

 spade ; and still keep the covering of straw or matting 

 over the whole bed as before, for neither wet nor sun 

 must get to it immoderately. Success now greatly depends 

 on the proper moisture of the bed. If in summer time, 

 take off the covering now and then to admit of gentle 

 showers falling on it ; or, if in a very dry season, water 

 now and then. But, if in winter, keep out the cold at all 

 times. The in-doors method of cultivating mushrooms was 

 introduced to this country from Germany. It is usually 

 by means of a small house in any awkward, or out-of-the- 

 way corner of the garden, about ten or twelve feet wide 

 and twenty or thirty feet long. With a fire-place on the 

 outside of one end, and a flue going from it straight down 

 under the middle of the floor of the house and back again 

 to the fire-place j with one door, and two or three small 

 windows, which latter are generally kept shut close with 

 unglazed shutters. All along the two sides of this house 

 are shelves arranged in three tiers, one close to the 

 bottom, another at about three feet up, and another at 

 about six feet up, and these shelves are about three feet 

 in breadth, made of good stout plank, with a front board 



