22 
grower has nearly 3 acres in beds. The temperature of these caves 
varies only from 56° in winter to G5° in summer. American growers 
have not hitherto generally succeeded in making as good spawn for 
propagating mushrooms as is imported from France and England, and 
consequently the importations from these countries have greatly in¬ 
creased during the last three years. When the American spawn is 
equally potent, it is not offered in as attractive form as the European, 
and the tendency of home growers has been to charge a higher rate for 
what they manufacture. 
A NEW SPECIES. 
Mr. Falconer described a new species of mushroom, Agaricus subru - 
fescens Peck. In the summer of 1892 he observed quantities of a rather 
uncouth looking mushroom, which was new to him, growing wild on 
and about piles of leaf mold. They are not scattered about as mush¬ 
rooms which are found in the held, but grew in bunches of two, three, 
or more—a dozen or two frequently growing together. But the crop 
was not steady. There might be a great quantity one week, hardly 
any the next, lots the following week, and so on. After a rain they 
would spring up like magic. There were about forty loads of rotting 
leaves in the pile, and in forking into it a gentle heat was found all 
summer. The spawn of the mushroom had run through the whole mass 
over 2 feet deep. The best ones grew in the two or three year old mold. 
His attention was called to the fact that a neighboring florist was picking 
a large quantity of mushrooms from his greenhouses and selling them at 
high prices in New York. Mr. Falconer went and saw them and found 
the statements true, but instead of the common mushroom (Agaricus 
campestris) it proved to be the same stranger he was studying at home. 
It appeared with the florist there the year before. Old violet beds in his 
grape and tomato house were full of mushrooms; old hotbeds in the 
nursery were run over with them, and they were growing in the open 
ground among his asparagus between rows of pear trees. Wherever 
planted they were coming up like a crop of weeds, and in sunshine and 
shade with apparent indifference. He had a bonanza and was increasing 
his mushroom-growing facilities; but while the mushroom has behaved 
with varying grace to him since then, it has not been so productive as it 
was the first year. It was pronounced a new species by Prof. 0. H. 
Peck, State botanist of New York, and was named by him Agaricus 
subrufescens. 
There is no doubt that this species has come to stay, especially as a 
summer crop. Before now the price of spawn—$5 for a 5-pound pack¬ 
age—was prohibitory; but the spawn of the new species will be offered 
this spring cheap enough for every person to try it. It will be sold as 
flake spawn—that is, not in bricks, but in the condition in which we get 
the French spawn—aaul probably at $1.50 a bushel or $5 a barrel. It 
is not only extraordinarily productive, but, unlike the ordinary mush- 
