103 MUSHEOOMS, HOW TO GBOW THEM. 



apparent injurious effect. When I was connected with 

 the London market gardens, some twenty years ago, 

 Steele, Bagley, Broadbent, and the other large mush- 

 room growers in the Fnlham Fields cased all of their 

 beds with the common garden soil — perhaps the most 

 manure-filled soil on the face of the earth — and spurious 

 fungi never troubled them. Indeed, I can not under- 

 stand why it should produce baneful crops of toadstools 

 when used in mushroom beds, and no toadstools when 

 used for other horticultural purposes, as on our carna- 

 tion benches in greenhouses, in our lettuce or cucumber 

 beds, or in the case of potted plants. True, spurious 

 fungi may appear in the earth on our greenhouse benches 

 or frame beds or mushroom beds at any time and in 

 more or less quantity, but I am convinced that the rich 

 earth of the vegetable garden has no more to do with 

 producing toadstools than has any other good soil, and 

 old manure has far less to do with it than has fresh 

 manure. 



All practical gardeners know how apt hotbeds, in 

 spring when their heat is on the decline, are to produce 

 a number of toadstools ; and, also, that when the bed is 

 "spent," that is, when the heat is altogether gone, the 

 tendency to bear toadstools has gone too. Tliis peculiar- 

 ity is more apparent in spring than in fall. All mush- 

 room growers know that spurious fungi, when they 

 appear at all, are most numerous three to two weeks 

 before it is time for the mushrooms to come in sight. 

 The same growth appeal's in the manure piles out in the 

 yard ; a few weeks after the strong heat of the manure 

 has gone lots of toadstools may be observed on and about 

 the heaps, but on the piles of well-rotted cold manure 

 we seldom find toadstools at all. 



The fresh, clean stable manure used in mushroom- 

 growing is not apt to be charged with the spores of per- 

 nicious toadstools ; their presence is always most marked 

 in the case of mixed manures. 



