320 Methode Nouvelle de cidtiver le Champignon. 



vateur dans le Comte de Norfolk, to have exhibited Jcacia verticillata and 

 Azalea indica phoenicea ; and Mr. Low of Clapton, i?rica mutabilis and Musa 

 discolor. Mr. Neill, the Duke of Hamilton, Sir John Sinclair, Mr. Sabine, 

 Mr. Spence the entomologist, who is styled Directeur du Jardin Botanique de 

 Hull, Dr. Wallich, and the names of some other Britons, were also among 

 those of the exhibiters. The reader of this pamphlet may very naturally sup- 

 pose that plants were sent to the Ghent exhibition by the British parties 

 mentioned ; but we will venture to assert, that by none of the persons above 

 mentioned was a single plant sent to the Salon d'Hiver in 1834. The custom 

 of putting down what are considered great names as the senders of plants to 

 exhibitions of this kind is a sort of pious fraud, not uncommon either in 

 the Netherlands or in France. We detest it, and wish that we could, by 

 exposing the practice, excite a similar feeling against it in the breasts of all 

 other horticulturists. 



Methode nouvelle, facile, etpeu couteuse de cultiver le Champignon, fyc. : A new, 

 easy, and economical, method of cultivating the Mushroom, founded on 

 numerous experiments, and suitable to every description of locality, not 

 even excepting the interior of apartments. 12mo, 28 pages; two plates. 

 Brussels. No date. 



In the introduction, the author informs us that Brussels, during six months 

 of the year, is chiefly supplied with mushrooms from Paris; and that spawn, 

 also, is generally obtained from that city. Being a great lover of mushrooms, 

 he was desirous of obtaining them more easily; and, for this purpose, he 

 sought for information on the subject of their culture in books, by observ- 

 ation, by travel, and by conversing with cultivators. He does not seem to 

 have had recourse to English works ; but an Englishman gave him directions 

 how to make spawn. By observation he found that too much humidity and 

 too much dryness alike destroyed the mushroom spawn, whether in pastures 

 or in artificial beds. He found that, if much rain fell in May and June, there 

 were very few mushrooms to be found in the meadows in the September fol- 

 lowing. He also found that watering a mushroom bed immediately after it 

 was made destroyed the spawn, as did exposing the bed to the full influence 

 of the light and air. In the course of a tour in Germany he learned what he 

 considers his best mode of producing spawn; which is by the use of short 

 horse dung with a little dry cow dung; these being mixed together, the mass 

 is pierced with holes, into each of which a little bran of wheat and a pinch of 

 sal ammoniac is put. He concludes his chapter on making spawn by observ- 

 ing, that, if the farmers and stable-keepers of Belgium knew how to cultivate 

 mushrooms, they might soon become so abundant throughout the year, as to 

 be within the reach of the poorest citizen. This is an excellent idea, and we 

 wish we could impress it on the minds of stable-keepers in England, and, in- 

 deed, everywhere. Why should not every hostler grow mushrooms ? It 

 might be one of his perquisites ; and it would only occupy the hours he now 

 spends in the tap. 



Perhaps the only idea in the tract which is new to the English gardener, is 

 that of employing the dried powder of cow dung as a surface dressing to 

 mushroom beds, and, after it is laid on, watering it with water in which nitre 

 has been dissolved, at the rate of two ounces of nitre to the water intended 

 for four square feet of ground. The use of nitre, the author says, is an in- 

 vention of his own ; and he thinks that it not only produces a more abun- 

 dant crop, but one eight or ten days earlier. 



He grows mushrooms in boxes, drawers, and in all the different modes enu- 

 merated in our Encyc. of Gard. (§ 3813. to § 3880., edit, of 1834), and he 

 goes even so far as to cultivate them on the shelves of presses in stables or 

 cow-houses, in cellars, in garrets, in closets under stairs, in old chests of 

 drawers, in bedrooms, and under stages of flowers even in drawing-rooms ; in 

 short, wherever he can find room for a drawer or box 7 in. deep. 



To preserve mushrooms fresh for a few days after being gathered, he puts 



