PAXTON’S 
HORTICULTURAL REG 1STER, 
SEPTEMBER, 1835. 
HORTICULTURE. 
ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE MUSHROOM. 
The mushroom is the only one of the cryptogamous or flowerless 
plants which have been brought into cultivation with success. Trials, 
we believe, have been made to domesticate both the truffle and morell, 
but without any decided advantage. The truffle is wholly subter¬ 
ranean ; the roots and branches of the other two are also subterranean, 
but their eatable parts appear on the surface, or under very slight 
coverings of fallen leaves or herbage. The mushroom is produced 
spontaneously in open pastures, the others are inhabitants of woods 
It is observable of the mushroom, that if the spring and summer be 
dry, and there afterwards fall frequent warm showers of rain, they 
appear in groat abundance ; but in opposite circumstances we observe 
the reverse. This circumstance is a direction to the cultivator, who 
keeps his mushroom-bed at first rather dry, and gives no water until 
the branches of the plant are sufficiently spread, and in a condition to 
bear the produce. 
Mushrooms, like other plants, are re-produced by seeds called 
sporules by botanists. These are abundantly shed under the sem¬ 
blance of fine dust, and by the action of winds are transported far and 
wide, and wherever they fall in places or on substances suitable and 
favourable to their vegetation remain and come to perfection; hence 
they are often met with on old dung-hills, in stables, and cattle-sheds, 
where the decaying substances on which the plant luxuriates happens 
to have been protected from too much wet and frosty air. 
VOL. iv.— NO. LI. 
L L 
