THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



[Sept. 



movedj and the bed covered with straw. The genial showers 

 of spring cause the mushrooms to be produced again in con- 

 siderable quantities, until the droughts of summer render it 

 difficult to keep the bed sufficiently moist for their production. 

 Sometimes the beds are allowed to remain undisturbed, and in 

 such cases, produce crops the second autumn ; but more gene- 

 rally they are taken to pieces, and the spawn collected out of 

 them, and reserved for future beds. 



It is conjectured, and we think witli every chance of suc- 

 cess, that such beds might be made to produce crops during 

 winter, by tlie application of moderate linings of well-prepared 

 dung, sufficient to repel the frost, and keep the spawn in an 

 active state. It will be necessary, in applying water during 

 winter, to have it rendered moderately warm, but little of that 

 element will be found to be necessary, the steam produced 

 from the bed being almost sufficient. 



Mr. Hogan, in Hort. Trans., recommends growing mush- 

 rooms on hollow ridges. " The exterior form of my bed," lie 

 says, " resembles the old ones as built against a wall ; but, 

 instead of building it solid, it is hollow. Strong stakes are 

 inclined against the wall, at an angle of about 65 degrees, on 

 which hurdles are placed to support the bed. By this means 

 a cavity is formed under the stakes between them and the wall 

 and floor, for the purpose of receiving dung, which, being 

 readily changed, (the ends of the cavity being open,) an op- 

 portunity is thus aflbrded of keeping up a permanently moist 

 heat in the bed, the absence of which, together with an in- 

 sufficient depth of mould for the spawn to run in, is the great 

 defect of all other modes of raising mushrooms with which he 

 is acquainted. On this structure, fourteen inches of rotten 

 dung, and four inches of loamy earth, were laid and beaten 

 firmly, and the spawning, and other processes and results, were 

 the same as usual." From this mode, says an enlightened 

 horticulturist, we fear two evils : — " Occasional over-heating 

 and over-drying, either of which is ruinous to the mushroom. 

 But, in our practice, we have succeeded in producing very 

 good crops by the same process, but as our bed was con- 

 structed within an old vinery, probably the necessary humidity 

 of the house counteracted one of the evils feared, and the 



