114 MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GBOW THEM. 



of the beds, always on the bare places, never touching 

 the mushrooms, and leave it there for a day or two, 

 then with a fine, gentle sprinkling of water wash it into 

 the soil. This is to help destroy the anguillulae. As a 

 fertilizer only dissolve four ounces of salt in ten gallons 

 of water, and with this sprinkle the beds. 



A too dry atmosphere can be remedied by sprinkling 

 the floors, walls, or litter coverings on the beds with 

 water, not heavily or copiously, but gently and only 

 enough to wet the surfaces ; better moisten in this way 

 frequently than drench the place at any one time. But 

 I very much dislike sprinkling the beds in order to 

 moisten the atmosphere. An experienced man can tell 

 in a moment whether or not the atmosphere of the mush- 

 room house is too dry. The air in the mushroom house 

 should always feel moist, at the same time not raw or 

 chilly, and the floor and wall surfaces should present a 

 slow tendency to dry up, and the eartli on the beds 

 should retain its dark, moist appearance. The least 

 tendency to dryness should at once be relieved by damp- 

 ing the wall and floor surfaces. 



In houses heated by smoke flues, or still more by ordi- 

 nary stoves and sheet iron pipes, it may be necessary to 

 dampen the floors and walls once or several times a day 

 to maintain a sufiiciently moist atmosphere, but where 

 hot water pipes are used and the houses are tight enough 

 to require but little artificial heat, such frequent sprink- 

 ling will not be necessary. In the case of beds in un- 

 heated structures the or3inary atmosphere is generally 

 moist enough. 



Manure Steam for Moistening the Atmosphere. 

 The late James Barnes, of England, a grand old gar- 

 dener, writing in the London Garden, Vol. Ill, page 486, 

 describes his method of growing mushrooms sixty years 

 ago, and says : " In winter a nice moist heat was main- 

 tained by placing hot stable manure inside, and often 



