254 FUNGI. 
palates, and its cultivation might be attempted. Burying a ripe 
specimen in similar soil, and watering ground with the spores, 
has been tried without success. * 
As tothe methods adopted for cultivation of the common mush- 
room, it is unnecessary to detail them here, as there are several 
special treatises devoted to the subject, in which the particulars 
are more fully given than the limits of this chapter will permit.t 
Recently, M. Chevreul exhibited at the French Academy some 
splendid mushrooms, said to have been produced by the following 
method: he first develops the mushrooms by sowing spores on 
a pane of glass, covered with wet sand ; then he selects the most 
vigorous individuals from among them, and sows, or plants their 
mycelium in a cellar in a damp soil, consisting of gardener’s 
mould, covered with a layer of sand and gravel two inches thick, 
and another layer of rubbish from demolitions, about an inch deep. 
The bed is watered with a diluted solution of nitrate of potash, 
and in about six days the mushrooms grow to an enormous 
size.t The cultivation of mushrooms for the market, even in 
this country, is so profitable, that curious revelations sometimes 
crop up, as at a recent trial at the Sheriffs’ Court for compensa- 
* Experiments were made at Belvoir, by Mr. Ingram, in the cultivation of 
several species of Agaricini, but without success, and a similar fate attended 
some spawn of a very superior kind from the Swan River, which was submitted 
to the late Mr. J. Henderson. No result was obtained at Chiswick, either from 
the cultivation of truffles or from the inoculation of grass-plots with excellent 
spawn. Mr. Disney's experiments at the Hyde, near Ingatestone, were made with 
dried truffles, and were not likely to succeed. The Viscomte Nde succeeded in 
obtaining abundant truffles, in an enclosed portion of a wood fenced from wild 
boars, by watering the ground with an infusion of fresh specimens; but it ig 
possible that as this took place in a truffle country, there might have been a crop 
without any manipulation. Similar trials, and it is said successfully, have been 
made with Bolctus edulis. Specimens of prepared t1uffle-spawn were sent many 
years since to the ‘‘Gardener’s Chronicle,” but they proved useless, if indeed 
they really contained any reliable spawn. 
+ Robinson, ‘On Mushroom Culture,” London, 1870. Cuthill, ‘‘On the 
Cultivation of the Mushroom,” 1861. Abercrombie, ‘The Garden Mushroom ; 
its Culture, &c.” 1802, 
+ This has, however, not been confirmed, and is considered (how justly we 
cannot say) a * canard.” 
