864 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
DEO SO 
digger. Two weeks ago I went to Michigan 
on purpose to see a new potato digger—tbe 
Newberry—work, and to see why the McCal- 
lum and Hoover had failed, as they had in 
that locality. The trouble with the latter 
diggers was due to small stones in the soil and 
four strong horses in front of the tool. Be¬ 
tween the two the diggers were soon used up. 
The new machine, made on the same princi¬ 
ple as the others, actually went right through 
stony land without a single catch. W hen 
perfected, it may be made the best one on the 
market; but one cannot tell yet. The manu¬ 
facturers—two farmers—propose to also pick 
up the potatoes. More properly speaking, 
they do not let them drop at all, but catch 
them in a cart at the rear of the digger. 
"When one cart is full they take it off and 
hitch on another, and have a contrivance for 
emptying the cart into a wagon. I saw all 
this done in the field; but th machine was 
too crude for one to pass judgment on it. 
They hadn’t got things to work properly so 
that I could time them and get any positive 
data to figure on, and compare with the re¬ 
sults of hand picking. 
Our friend should have about 150 bushel 
boxes to be used in harvesting his crop. 
These can be bought, in the flat, iron-bound 
and with nails to put them up, at $16.50 per 
100. They save much time and lifting and 
extra handling, in the course of the season. 
I find potato stubble a wonderfully good 
place for winter wheat, or rye for soiling or 
plowing under. To prepare the ground no 
plow should be used. The Cutaway barrow, 
advertised in the Rural, is the best tool yet 
out, or. I think, that can ever be got out to fit 
such stubble for grain. I have two sulky cul¬ 
tivators and a plain disk harrow in the tocj 
house. There is some rust on them, showing 
that they have not been out the last two 
seasons. The Cutaway is bright. I need say 
no more. For fitting sod ground for potatoes 
in the spring, if the sod is so tough as to need 
cutting up, no tool will do this so well and 
with so light a draft as the Cutaway. When 
using it always lap half: you thus harrow all 
the ground twice, once each way, and leave it 
nearly level. 
Summit Co., O. 
“ Come, here is work—and a rank field — 
begin. 
Put thou thine edge to the great weeds of sin; 
So shalt thou find the use of life , and see 
Thy Lord At set of sun approach and say , 
4 Well done.' ” — Ellsworth. 
GROWING MUSHROOMS. 
W. FALCONER. 
A practical Jersey man successfully grows 
mushrooms for profit; his simple method 
of doing so; the “ cellar" method fully de¬ 
scribed; the cellar and its ventilation; 
horse manure only; soil, a vegetable gar¬ 
den loam; the bed and how to make it; 
English brick spawn; a temperature of 
57°, preferably without the aid of fire- 
heat; top-dressing with enriched soil bene¬ 
ficial-, keeping up moisture; the steam 
from horse manure as a source of plant 
food and moisture; English brick and 
French flake spawn; a bed lasts about 
six months; gathering and marketing. 
R. JOHN G. GARDNER, of 
Jobstown, (about a dozen 
miles from Trenton, N. J., 
I should think), grows mush¬ 
rooms largely and success¬ 
fully, and all for market. It 
isn’t a matter of experiment 
or fancy with him at all, but 
one of profit—his bread and 
butter depend upon it. He 
grows them in frames inside 
his cool greenhouses, also in a 
large, frost-proof cellar un¬ 
der a hay barn. Now this 
cellar is simply an ordinary 
cellar, such as any farmer 
in the country has, and the 
been done to it to darken the 
windows and make them tight so as to render 
them better for mushrooms, any farmer with 
a hand saw, an axe, a hammer and a few 
nails and some boards can do. Mr. Gardner 
is a market gardener and has not the amount 
of fresh manure upon his own place that he 
needs for mushroom growing, but he buys it 
in New York and thence gets it shipped to 
him by rail. And this pays. Now, if it will 
pay a man to get manure at such a cost for 
little that has 
mushroom growing, how much more will 
mushroom growing pay the farmer who has 
the cellar and the manure as well? Mr. Gard¬ 
ner raises mushrooms and lots of them, and 
any one who is interested in this direction can 
go right to his place and see for himself. I 
was there on November 28, and saw them—a 
capital crop, and Mr. Gardner, instead of try 
ing to hide anything in their cultivation from 
me, took particular pains to show and explain 
everything about his way of growing them. 
He assures me that by the old complicated 
and troublesome way of preparing the man¬ 
ure and “fixing” for the crop, he couldn’t 
make any money by growing mushrooms, but 
by the simple means he now practices he gets 
good crops, good mushrooms, good prices and 
good profits. As the cellar method is the 
most available one for farmers, this is the one 
I will describe in detail. 
The cellar is 60 feet long, 24 feet wide and 
nine feet high from floor to ceiling. The floor 
is an earthen one, but perfectly dry. It is 
well supplied with window ventilators and 
doors, and in the ceiling at the middle of the 
cellar opens a tall shaft or chimney-like ven¬ 
tilator that passes straight up through the 
roof above. While the beds are being made 
full ventilation by doors, windows and shaft 
is given, but as soon as there is any sign of 
the mushrooms appearing all ventilators, ex¬ 
cept the shaft in the middle, are shut up close¬ 
ly and thenceforward kept shut. 
The Manure used in forming the beds is 
common horse-stable manure and is brought 
here from Jersey City, over 70 miles on rail¬ 
road cars. 
The soil used for mixing with the manure 
and for surfacing the beds is ordinary vege¬ 
table garden loam. 
The bed occupies the whole surface of the 
cellar floor and was all made up on one day. 
As a pathway a single row of boards is laid 
on the top of the bed, running lengthwise 
along the middle of the cellar from the 
door to the farther end, and here and there 
between this narrow path and the walls on 
either side, a few pieces of slate are laid down 
on the bed to step on when gathering the 
mushrooms. 
Making the Bed. —Now here comes the 
oddest thing about Mr. Gardner’s mushroom¬ 
growing. He doesn’t prepare the manure in 
any way whatever for the mushroom beds. 
He hauls it right from the cars to the cellar 
and at once spreads it upon the floor and 
packs it solid into a bed. For the bed now in 
bearing the manure arrived at Jobstown on 
September 8, and it was hauled home and the 
bed made up the same day, and the first 
mushrooms were gathered from this bed the 
second week in November, just in two months 
from the time the manure left the Jersey City 
or New York City stables. The bed is 15 
inches thick. In making it the manure was 
first shaken up loosely to admit of its being 
more evenly spread than if pitched out in 
heavy forkfuls, and it was then tramped down 
firmly with the feet. The bed was theu 
marked off into halves. On one half (No. 1) a 
little over a three inch deep layer of loam 
was at once laid over the manure; on the 
other half (No. 2) no loam was put on at this 
time, but the manure on the surface of 
the bed— about three inches deep—was forked 
ovei lonely. Twelve days after having been 
put in, the temperature of the bed No. 2, three 
inches deep, was 90°, and then it was spawned 
on the 28th. Next day the soil from bed No. 
1 was thrown over on to bed No. 2, which 
was spawned on the 24th, and then part of the 
soil that was thrown on No. 1 was then thrown 
back again on No. 2, so that now a coating of 
loam 1% inch deep covered the whole sur¬ 
face of the bed. When finished, the surface 
ras tamped gently with a tamper whose face 
5 a piece of pine plank 16 inches long by 12 
aches wide. Mr. G. does not believe in the 
lleged advantages of a hard-packed surface 
n the mushroom bed, but is inclined to favor 
. very moderately firm one. 
Spawn. —He uses the English brick spawn 
ehich is sold by all of our seedsmen. He has 
ried making his own spawn, but owing to not 
laving proper means of trying it, he has met 
vith indifferent success. 
Spawning the Beds —Almost all mushroom 
;rowers insert the pieces of spawn about two 
>r three inches under the surface of the man 
ire, one piece^.t a time, and at regular inter¬ 
nals of eight or nine inches apart each way— 
engthwise and crosswise. But here again 
ffr. G. displays his individuality. He breaks 
ip the spawn in the usual way, in 'pieces one 
o two inches square. Of course, in breaking 
t up there is a good deal of fine stuff besides 
;he lumps. And now with a diamond-pointed 
loe he draws drills 18 inches apart and to 
;hree inches deep lengthwise along the bed, 
rnd in the rows he sows the spawn as if he 
ivere sowing peach stones or walnuts or snap¬ 
beans, and covers it in as if it were seeds. 
Temperature. —Mr. G. regards 57° as the 
most suitable for mushroom growing, and if 
possible, he maintains this without the aid of 
fire heat. He has hot-water pipes connected 
with the contiguous green-house heating 
arrangement in his cellar, but he never uses 
them for heating the mushroom cellar 
except when obliged to. By mulching his 
bed with straw he could get along without any 
fire-heat, but then this would be very awk¬ 
ward when gathering the mushrooms. 
Top-Dressing. —After the bed has borne a 
little while,Mr. G. assured me he finds that top¬ 
dressing it all over with a half-mch deep layer 
of fine soil is very beneficial to it. Before 
using, this soil had been kept in a close place 
—pit, frame,shed, or large box—in which there 
was at the same time a lot of steaming-hot 
manure so that it might become thoroughly 
charged with mushroom food absorbed from the 
steam from the fermenting material. 
Watering. —Should any portion of the 
bed get very dry, water it gently and somewhat 
sparingly, with water at a temperature of 
about 90 degrees through a fine-rosed water- 
pot or syringe. Never give enough water at 
a time to penetrate to the manure and the 
spawn below the coating of earth. But rather 
than make a practice of watering the beds 
Mr. G. finds it is much better to maintain a 
moist atmosphere by—when needed—sprink¬ 
ling the walls and ceiling with tepid water 
from a syringe. 
Food and Moisture.— And here is an idea 
of Mr. Gardner’s own, which I never before 
saw in practice in the same way. He firmly 
believes that the mushrooms derive much 
nourishment from the “steam” of fermenting 
fresh horse manure, and by using this ‘ ‘steam’) 
in our mushroom houses we can maintain 
an atmosphere almost moist enough to be 
able to dispense with the use of the syringe, 
and the mushrooms are fatter and heavier 
for it. And be practices what he preaches. 
In one end of his mushroom house he has 
a very large, deep, open box half filled 
with steaming-hot horse droppings, and once 
or twice a day he tosses these over with a 
dung fork in order to raise a “steam,” which 
it certainly does. It is also for this purpose 
that he introduces the loam into the cellar so 
soon when making the beds, so that it may 
become charged with food that would other¬ 
wise become dissipated in the atmosphere. 
Varieties of Mushrooms —Of course there 
is a marked difference between the mush¬ 
rooms raised from the French flake spawn 
and those from the English brick spawn; but 
he has never observed distinct varieties from 
the same kind of spawn. Sometimes a few 
mushrooms will appear that are somewhat 
differently formed from those of the general 
crop, but this he regards as the result of cul¬ 
tural conditions rather than of true varietal 
differences. 
The Duration of a Bed.— His bed began 
bearing early in November and he expects 
that it will continue to bear a good crop till 
the first of May next; after that time, no 
matter what the crop may be, the mushrooms 
become so infested with maggots as to be per¬ 
fectly worthless and they may at once be 
cleared out. It is on account of the large 
body of manure in the bed and the low, genial 
and equable temperature of the cellar that 
the beds in this house always continue so long 
in good cropping condition. 
Gathering and Marketing. —Some years 
ago the mushrooms were not gathered till 
their heads had opened out flat, but nowadays 
the market men don’t want them that way; 
they like to get them when they are quite 
young and before the frill between the cap 
and stem has broken apart. A good market 
is found in Philadelphia, New York and Bos¬ 
ton, especially in Boston. The mushrooms 
are shipped by express in 12-pound baskets. 
A layer two deep is laid in the bottom of the 
basket, then some paper, then another layer. 
All mushrooms whose caps are broken are re¬ 
jected, and those whose frill has burst are 
laid on the top layer. Baskets are far more 
carefully handled by expressmen than are 
boxes, and they cost very little. The supply 
of mushrooms has never been nearly equal to 
the demand. 
sense, 
Lie in three words — health, peace and com¬ 
petence." — Pope. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
14 ,—We are having the most perfect weather 
imaginable for either work or play. The 
nights are generally frosty, but the ther¬ 
mometer is above 40 degrees a good deal of 
the time during the day-time, and we have 
had no rain or snow to speak of since October. 
It is almost too dry for stock, as water on 
some farms is getting very scarce. But such 
weather as this, with a few days of warm 
rain occasionally, would be my ideal winter. 
Corn as well as nearly everything else raised 
here this year was a bountiful crop, many 
pieces averaging 80 and 90 bushels per acre. 
Farmers here feel quite encouraged once more. 
But in Southern Wisconsin it was drier than 
last summer. w. s. s. 
“ Because in a day of my days to come, 
There waiteth a grief to be, 
Shall my heart grow faint and my lips be 
dumb , 
In this day that is bright to me ?" 
— Mrs. Songster. 
Michigan. 
Three Rivers, St. Joseph Co., Dec. 15.— 
We are having a very pleasant winter, so far. 
We have had no snow to speak of and coulh 
plow almost every day in the afternoon. 
Streams are very low; there hasn’t been 
enough rain to wet the ground for many 
weeks. Late-sown wheat has a small top; 
corn is all husked: about hal f a crop. Potatoes 
did not give a very big yield; but there is 
no market to speak of for them. Wheat is 
worth $1 per bushel; corn40cents; hogs $4 50 
live weight; potatoes 30 cents; butter 20cents; 
eggs 18 cents. s. M. s. 
“ Let's take the instant by the forward top, 
For we are old and on our quicks't decrees 
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time 
Steals ere we can effect them." 
— Shakespeare. 
“O, in this mocking world, too fast 
The doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth. 
Better be cheated to the last 
Than lose the blessed hope of truth." 
— Kemble. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
“ Reason's whole pleasure—all the joys of 
Illinois. 
Pleasant Valley, Jo Daviess Co., Dec. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the namp 
and address of the writer to insure attention. Before 
asking a question, please see if It Is not answered in 
our advertising columns. Ask only a few questions at 
one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper. 
OIL NOT A FERTILIZER ; THE SOURCE OF OIL 
IN PLANTS. 
M. B. P., Henderson, N. C.—l. Recently in 
talking to some of my neighbors I remarked 
that the oil in cotton seed was of no value as 
a fertilizer. Was I right or wrong ? 2. One 
of my doubting auditors asked : “Where, 
then, does the oil in the seed come from ?” 
Will the Rural throw some light on the 
matter ? 
ANSWERED BY PROFESSOR F. H. STORER. 
1. It is safe to say that the oil in cotton 
seeds is of no value as a fertilizer. Probably 
the oil would do harm rather than good when 
put upon the land. It is known, for example, 
that the removal of oil from bone-meal im¬ 
proves this fertilizer. In other words, meal 
made from bones which have been steamed 
moderately, in order to extract the grease, 
acts more quickly as a fertilizer than meal 
made from raw bones, and is preferred to the 
raw meal. Of course, the oil in cotton seeds 
is valuable for feeding cattle, but this consid¬ 
eration is quite beside the present inquiry. 
Like various other substances found in 
plants—such as starch and sugar, and cotton 
itself, for that matter—the oil of cotton seeds 
is derived from the air and from water. A 
plant standing in a soil which is adequately 
moistened and supplied with nitrogen in a 
form fit for it to feed upon, as well as potash, 
phosphoric acid, lime, magnesia and certain 
other so-called ash ingredients, will grow per¬ 
fectly well and will obtain from the carbonic 
acid which exists in the air all the carbona¬ 
ceous matter which is needed for making the 
starch, sugar, oil, fiber, or what-not for which 
“Herbrand” Fifth Wheel for Buggies.— Adv. 
v 
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