house especially built in the side hill, in the way an ice house is built, 
with a "double roof; and it may be built in such a way as to make arti- 
ficial heat unnecessary. For those of us who live in city apartments, 
and to whom all conditions seem equally impossible, I will tell you of 
one writer who said his first trial was in a soap box kept under a bed, 
and he adds laconically: "The mushroom crop was successful!" 
This, however, is not a suggestion! I like better the story of a Belgian 
cook who grew beautiful mushrooms in a pair of wooden shoes. 
Of all these places, a shed, for fall cultivation, or a barn, or some 
where in a garage is best, for I have been told by people who grew them 
in cellars that the odor of the manure in which they are planted has a 
way of coming up through the furnace pipes and permeating every 
room in the house. It has often been thought that darkness is essen- 
tial, but this is not so. Frequently little skylights are built in mushroom 
houses, and sheds open on one side to the light have sheltered many 
fine mushrooms. Last winter I saw some growing in a greenhouse on 
Long Island, not in trays below the benches, carefully protected from 
"drip" in the usual way, but coming up between rows of carnations 
which had the full strength of the sun on them. 
Now as to how to grow them. There are three general requisites: 
First. — Decaying vegetable matter. Second. — A uniform and 
rather low temperature. Third. — Uniform supply of moisture in the 
mixture with dry air in the place chosen for the growing. 
The decaying matter is provided by horse manure which should 
be collected and kept in a shed where rain can not touch it. "The 
manure should be turned over each morning for a few days, and be- 
fore the heat of the manure has subsided sufiiciently to permit the 
bed being made, mix one-third as much loam as there is manure 
into the whole." 
The rank heat thus escapes, and it can be made at once into a bed 
of from 9 to 12 inches deep. 
The loam must be of good earth shaken from tufts of sod, or from a 
rose garden. The early EngUsh writer I referred to called it "strong 
earth. " That is the first method given in the Cyclopedia of American 
Horticulture, and is the most thorough and difficult, for the collect- 
ing, turning, cooling process lasts from September to November, when 
the bed is fully prepared. All authorities say autumn is the best time 
to prepare the beds. 
The second method saves a little time, but not much labor. This 
method, I believe, was from a Government pamphlet. — Collect a 
pile of fresh horse manure in a shed until it is 3 or 4 feet high; pack 
down firmly. This prevents hasty heating. Leave until fermentation 
has started, which may be in only 2 or 3 days. Then turn, so that part 
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