24 MUSHEOOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM. 



along without any fire-heat, but this is very awkward 

 when gathering the mushrooms. 



After the bed has borne a little while it is top-dressed 

 all over with a half-incli layer of fine soil. Before using, 

 this soil has been kept in a close place — pit, frame, shed, 

 or large box — in which there was, at the same time, a 

 lot of steaming-hot manure, so that it might become 

 thoroughly charged with mushroom food absorbed from 

 the steam from the fermenting material. 



Should any portion of the bed get very dry, water of a 

 temperature of 90° is given gently and somewhat spar- 

 ingly through a fine-spraying waterpot rose, or syringe. 

 Enough water is never given at any one time to pene- 

 trate through the casing into the manure below or the 

 spawn in the manure. But rather than make a practice 

 of watering the beds, Mr. Gardner finds it is better to 

 maintain a moist atmosphere, and thus lessen the neces- 

 sity for watering. 



Mr. Gardner firmly believes that the mushrooms de- 

 rive much nourishment from the "steam" of fermenting 

 fresh horse manure, and by using this "steam" in our 

 mushroom houses we can maintain an atmosphere almost 

 moist enough to be able to dispense with the use of the 

 syringe, and the mushrooms are fatter and heavier for 

 it. And he practices what he preaches. In one end of 

 his mushroom cellar he has a very large, deep, open box, 

 half filled with steaming fresh horse-droppings, and once 

 or twice a day he tosses these over with a dung-fork, in 

 order to raise a " steam," which it certainly does. It is 

 also for this purpose that he introduces the loam so soon 

 when making the beds, so that it may become charged 

 with food that otherwise would be dissipated in the 

 atmosphere. 



There is a marked difference between the mushrooms 

 raised from the French flake spawn and those from the 

 English brick spawn, but he has never observed any dis* 



