256 FUNGI. 
and stables. Certainly fungi are never so harmless, or seldom 
so delicious, as when collected from the bed, and cooked at once, 
before the slightest chemical change or deterioration could pos- 
sibly take place. 
Mr. Cuthill’s advice may be repeated here. He says:—“I 
must not forget to remind the cottager that it would be a 
shilling or two a week saved to him during the winter, if he had 
a good little bed of mushrooms, even for his own family, to say 
nothing about a shilling or two that he might gain by selling to 
his neighbours. Ican assure hiin mushrooms grow faster than 
pigs, and the mushrooms do not eat anything; they only want 
a little attention. Addressing myself to the working classes, I 
advise them, in the first place, to employ their children or others 
collecting horse-droppings along the highway, and if mixed with 
a little road-sand, so much the better. They must be deposited 
in a heap during summer, and trodden firmly. They will heat 
a little, but the harder they are pressed the less they will heat. 
Over-heating must be guarded against; if the watch or trial 
stick which is inserted into them gets too hot for the hand to 
bear, the heat is too great, and will destroy the spawn. In that 
case artificial spawn must be used when the bed is made up, but 
this expedient is to be avoided on account of the expense. The 
easiest way for a cottager to save his own spawn would be to 
do so when he destroys his old bed; he will find all round the 
edges or driest parts of the dung one mass of superior spawn ; 
let him keep this carefully in a very dry place, and when he 
makes up his next bed it can then be mixed with his summer 
droppings, and will insure a continuance and excellent crop. 
These little collections of horse-droppings and road-sand, if kept 
dry in shed, hole, or corner, under cover, will in a short time 
ecnerate plenty of spawn, and will be ready to be spread on the 
surface of the bed in early autumn, say by the middle of Sep- 
tember or sooner. The droppings during the winter must bo 
put into a heap, and allowed to heat gently, say up to eighty or 
uinety degrees ; then they must be turned over twice daily to 
let off the heat and steam ; if this is neglectcd the natural spawn 
of the droppings is destroyed. The cottager should provide 
