342 
KITCHEN GARDEN. 
German Stocks, Cockscombs, Sweet Peas, and 
other sweet and pretty subjects, are easily 
provided to cover the beds. The Strelitzias, 
Brugmansias, the Orange and Lemon tribe, 
in full bloom and fruit, become all-powerful 
agents in the furnishing of the conservatory 
in August ; and Dahlias, in pots, which are 
more easily commanded than almost any other 
subject from July to the frosts., are gaudy and 
available, of any colour. The conservatory 
must be continually weeded, raked, and swept, 
and every fallen petal, leaf, or flower, must 
disappear the first thing in the morning. 
Subjects from the stove should be always 
placed where there is the least wind, or 
draught of air, as they are the most easily 
affected. Those from which you derive no 
perfume, such as Dahlias, and other showy 
things of the kind, should be the most distant 
from the path usually frequented ; and all the 
fragrant subjects should be nearest the front, 
whether they are on the ground, or on stands, 
shelves, &c. Neatness is everything in a 
conservatory, so that the instant there is a 
plant beyond its prime it had better be re- 
moved, for its room is far better unoccupied 
than taken up with a loose, straggling, half- 
decayed plant, be it what it may. In other 
respects, the directions of previous months 
will be available in a great measure, and may 
be for the most part attended to. 
THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 
Mushroom growers may make up beds, or 
some other contrivances, for raising this use- 
ful article, and it is curious to contemplate the 
various modes of doing so. The principal in- 
gredients required are, first, short dung or 
droppings in a state of gentle fermentation, 
and the mushroom spawn. Of the many ways 
of producing the same end much may be said, 
but only two things are necessary; one is to 
get the dung of a gentle warmth to receive 
the spawn, and the other to cover it with a 
little clean loam. Now, whether this dung is 
placed in a sloping bank in a dark cellar, or 
in an outhouse, — whether it is on shelves in a 
dark cupboard or at the bottom of a vinery, — 
whether a flower-pot be filled three-parts full 
of the dung, and a lump of spawn be put on 
it and covered with mould in the stove, or 
bits of spawn be dibbled in, six inches apart, 
all over a declining melon or cucumber frame, 
the result will be the same, a plentiful supply 
of the articles required: good spawn only wants 
the means of spreading, and it will work any- 
where, from the common field to the mush- 
room-house. It has been said, in a garden 
newspaper, that light and heat are essential 
to the production of the mushroom; nothing 
can be more erroneous, the shelves in a dark 
cellar, in which no ray of light penetrates, may 
be made as productive as the same space in 
any other situation in the world. Throw on 
the ground a heap of the short dung, nicely 
tempered and regulated, so as to moderate the 
heat, whether this heap be two bushels or two 
hundred matters not, except that the smaller 
quantity should be in the form of a cone, and 
the larger quantity would be lengthened to a 
bank; all over this cone, or on both sides of 
this bank, place lumps of spawn (which is 
purchased at any of the nurseries the same as 
seed is) about as large as a hen's egg, nine 
inches apart every way, just tuck them in 
under the surface, then cover all with about 
an inch and a-half of pure light loam, or, in 
the absence of this, good garden earth. Now, 
if this be exposed in the open air, there must 
be six inches thickness of straw put over the 
whole ; if it be in a warm outhouse, much less 
will do ; if it be at the bottom of a stove or 
grapery, there needs no straw, nor does it if 
in a warm cellar. If they are to be grown on 
shelves, make the sloping bank of dung from 
front to back, and serve it just the same, ex- 
cept that the pieces of spawn may be less and 
put closer together. If you use one of your 
declining hot-beds, from which the heat has 
not all departed, scrape off all the mould but 
two inches thickness on the dung, and make 
holes down to the dung, to insert the pieces of 
spawn six inches apart all over the bed ; cover 
with the mould you take out of the holes, so 
as to fill them up again, and close up the 
frames, giving air occasionally, and shading 
from the sun with mats. 
Cabbages. — Sow seed on good ground in 
an open situation ; prick out small plants from 
the seed-bed to grow into strength. Plant 
out any you have strong enough into vacant 
places; plant them thick, so that portions may 
be used as greens, or rather coleworts, in 
bunches, and thus thin the remainder to pro- 
per distances. 
Potatoes. — If any of Chapman's remain 
out of ground, plant them the first week ; 
earth up those planted last month ; hoe and 
clean the spaces between the rows. 
Asparagus Beds. — If you have none already 
made, this is the time for making them. The 
old-fashioned way of doing this is to form 
beds three feet six inches or four feet wide, 
and alleys between them the same width at 
top, but sloping like a ditch, so as to be only 
eighteen inches at bottom. To make these 
permanent, mark out your four feet width, 
and dig two feet deep, fill the space with rotten 
turfs, rotten dung, and the best of the stuff 
you take out, or if you can get no other than 
the stuff you take out, mix half rotten dung 
with it, and return it all to the hole again, 
treading it in rather lightly than otherwise, but 
still enough to settle it. The addition of the 
