LOAM FOR THE BEDS. 101 



Ordinary garden soil is used more frequently than any 

 other sort, and altogether with highly satisfactory results. 

 The gi'eatest objection I have to it is the amount of 

 insects it is apt to contain on account of its often re- 

 peated heavy manurings 



Koadside dirt, whether loamy or gritty, may also be 

 used with good results. If free from weeds, sticks, 

 stones and rough drift, it may be used at once, but it is 

 much better to stack it in a pile to rot for a few months 

 before using. 



Sandy soil, such as occurs in the water-shed drifts 

 along the roads and where it has been washed into the 

 fields, is much inferior to stiffer and more fibrous earth. 



I have used the rich dark colored soil from slopes and 

 dry hollows in woods, and, odd though it may appear, 

 as mushrooms do not naturally grow in woods, with suc- 

 cess. But it is not as good as loam from the open field. 



Peat soil or swamp muck that has been composted for 

 two or three years has failed to give me good returns. 

 The mushroom.s will come up through it all right, but 

 they do not take kindly to it. 



Heavy, clayey loam is, in one way, excellent, in 

 another, not so good. So long as we can keep it equably 

 moist without making it muddy it is all right, but if we 

 let it get a little too dry it cracks, and in this way breaks 

 the threads of the spawn and ruins the mushrooms that 

 were fed through them. 



Loam Containing Old Manure — Loam in which 

 thex'e is a good deal of old, undecomposed manure, such 

 as the rich soil of our vegetable gardens, is unqualifi- 

 edly condemned by some writers because of the quantity 

 of spurious and noxious fungi it is supposed to produce 

 when used in mushroom beds. But I can not join in 

 this denunciation because my experience does not justify 

 it. This earth is the only kind used by many market 

 gardeners, as they have no other, and certainly without 



