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. I can assure him 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 

 generate 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 

 ninety degrees ; then they must be turned over twice daily to 

 let off the heat and steam ; if this is neglected the natural spawn 

 of the droppings is destroyed. The cottager should provide 



