SEPT.] KITCHEN VEGETABLES. 115 



plentiful, a bed of considerable dimensions may be 

 made and finished within five or six weeks. In as 

 many more weeks, if in a stable or dry cellar, or a 

 fined shed, it will begin to produce, and often soon- 

 er ; but if the situation of the bed be cold, it will 

 sometimes be two or three months of producing 

 mushrooms. 



Of watering the Mushroom Beds. 



In any situation, the bed must have no water till 

 the spawn begins to run. When you would know 

 this, thrust in your hand a few inches deep, in 

 different parts of the bed, and examine what you 

 bring up. It ought to smell exactly of mush- 

 rooms, and have the appearance of small bits of 

 thread. But generally you will be forewarned of 

 the spawn's running, by a previous crop of spurious 

 fungi, which rise more or less abundantly, accord- 

 ing to the fineness or grossness of the materials of 

 which the bed is composed. These fungi generally 

 are either what are called pipes or balls ; and some- 

 times a kind of mushroom, of a very bad sort, thin, 

 flat, with white or pale yellow gills. They have all, 

 however, a nauseous, sickly smell, and may readily 

 be distinguished from the true mushroom, which 

 is thick, hemispherical, with brown or reddish gills. 



When you have thus ascertained that the spawn 

 is fully formed, give the bed two or three hearty 

 waterings, in order to set it a-growing ; for other- 

 wise, it will lie dormant, and shew no symptom of 

 vegetation. Give just as much water (but by no 



