412 
KITCHEN GARDEN. 
much of when produced ; so simple is the 
culture of this useful fungus, that it is almost 
impossible to be so situated as not to produce 
them in plenty, and some idea may be formed 
of the necessary conditions, when we mention 
that a cupboard or cellar, in which a ray of 
light never appears, will yield them as plen- 
tifully, in proportion to the space occupied, as 
a market garden. What, then, are the con- 
ditions ? Throw down a heap of short dung, 
the horse droppings ; this will heat in a i'ew 
days ; if it become too hot, turn it a little 
and heap it up again ; when there is a 
genial warmth, place all over it, about six 
inches apart, and tucking it in, so as to be 
even with the surface, pieces of mushroom 
spawn, about the size of a good walnut for 
pickling ; upon this put about an inch thick- 
ness of mould in dry working order. If this 
is in a dark cupboard or cellar, it will need no 
covering ; if it be in the open air, or under a 
shed open to the weather, it must be covered 
with straw all over, four or five inches thick ; 
but, presuming the little bed to be on a cellar 
floor, or in some cupboard, you need not 
trouble yourself about it until mushrooms 
reward you for the gathering. Much has 
been said by a contemporary work about the 
necessity of light and heat to produce the 
mushroom. This theory is opposed to every- 
thing like practice and experience, and the 
writer must be very ignorant to put forth an 
opinion which nature, without the assistance 
of science ' and art, contradicts ; some of the 
finest mushrooms, if size be an object, have 
been found in dark places. They have been 
known to force up stones in cellars, and come 
of an enormous size. We have had a rump- 
steak at the posting-house at Southall, and 
gone down into the dark cellar to gather the 
mushrooms that we ate with it. We have, in 
our time, paid for gathering horse droppings to 
rot for compost in a cellar intended to store 
potatoes in, and had an abundant and lasting 
crop without using spawn, some having been 
accidentally gathered with the dung ; and 
though not totally devoid of light, have 
gathered large quantities from a heap con- 
sisting of half-a-dozen barrowfuls of drop- 
pings, formed as we have described under 
the closely-filled stage of a green-house. And 
lastly, with regard to the necessity of light, 
which our contemporary insists upon, we 
have gathered, for many months together, 
bushels, .of fine mushrooms from a bed made 
in a dry lean-to apartment formed along the 
back of a green-house, in which there was no 
light till the door was opened. We have 
spoken of the simple method which any cot- 
tager in the kingdom might adopt to produce 
this excellent fungus ; of course those who 
grow on a large scale for market, must adopt 
a more methodical kind of structure. Some 
of them have regular mushroom houses, others 
grow them on the floors of vineries and 
pineries ; some make a rule of laying sloping 
heaps of the manure and spawn against every 
wall in their sheds and out-houses, even under 
their binding and potting tables, because the 
wall is a support that keeps the stuff well 
together, and the straw that is laid over is 
not so much disturbed as if it were in the 
more open space. The mode of getting up a 
bed on a larger scale is this : — The ground is 
marked out, say six feet wide at the bottom, 
and as long as we choose ; the short stable 
dung, the greater part of which is droppings, 
is laid together some time before use, and is 
prepared almost the same as if for a hot-bed, 
turned over, shaken out, and if getting too 
dry a heat, watered with a watering-pot until 
the warmth is pretty regular all over it ; it is 
then spread over the space marked out, and 
every layer that goes on being smaller, a 
complete bank is formed, about four feet 
high ; this is allowed to lie together, with 
some straw over it, until the heat appears 
well disseminated throughout the length. The 
spawn having been broken into pieces the 
size of a hen's egg, is tucked in just under 
the surface, in rows nine inches apart from 
the bottom to the top ; good sifted loam is 
then put all over it an inch thick, and the 
whole is covered with straw. In a few weeks 
the mushrooms appear and continue coming 
all over the bed. The straw has to be re- 
moved for gathering, but is returned directly, 
as the bed is by that means preserved longer 
in good condition. As the Melon-beds and 
Cucumber-beds are now done with, the plants 
may be removed, the earth stirred up and re- 
duced to an inch or rather more in thickness, 
and pieces of spawn placed from six to nine 
inches apart all over, just upon the dung ; 
this may be shut up until there are symptoms 
of mushrooms, but the sun must be kept off 
with matting, or some other effectual shade. 
In short, wherever the spawn can find a 
medium to spread in, it will generate mush- 
rooms ; and though horse droppings are the 
most appropriate medium, the open border 
has been known to produce abundant crops, 
though the place was only dressed with an old 
mushroom-bed. Mushroom-houses are made 
now with broad shelves, one above another, 
on each side wall ; on these shelves the drop- 
pings and spawn form a sloping heap from 
front to back, as high up the wall as it will 
lay well, and they are alwayu bearing ; but 
until the new doctrine was broached by some 
one who must have been totally ignorant of 
the nature and habit of the mushroom, nobody 
ever dreamed of light being essential ; and Ave 
have been through scores of houses where there 
