GROWING MUSHROOMS IN THE FIELDS. 
55 
the previous year. Why this should be so is not very 
clear. The popular opinion is that after a dry summer 
mushrooms abound in the fields, but after a wet summer 
they are a very scarce crop; and the inference is that 
the moisture has killed the spawn in the ground. This 
may be true to a certain extent, but how does it happen 
—as it certainly often does—that good spawn planted by 
hand in the fields in early summer will produce mush¬ 
rooms toward fall no matter whether the summer has 
been wet or dry ? At the same time, it is true that a 
wet spell immediately succeeding the planting of the 
spawn will kill a great deal of it. 
As a rule, wild mushrooms abound most in rich, old, 
well-drained, rolling pasture lands, and avoid dry, sandy, 
or wet places, or the neighborhood of trees and bushes. 
In attempting to cultivate them in the open fields w T e 
should endeavor to provide similar conditions. Then 
the chief requisite is good spawn, for without this we 
can not raise mushrooms. 
About the middle of June take a sharp spade in the 
pasture, make V or T-shaped cuts in the grass sod about 
four inches deep and raise one side enough to allow the 
insertion of a bit of spawn two to three inches square 
under it, so that it shall be about two inches below the 
surface, then tamp the sod down. By cutting and 
raising the sod in this way, without breaking it off, it 
is not as likely to die of drought in summer. In this 
way plant as much or little as may be desired and at 
distances of three, four, or more feet apart. During the 
following August or September the mushrooms should 
show themselves, and continue in bearing for several 
weeks. 
Mr. Henshaw, of Staten Island, who has been very 
successful in growing mushrooms in the fields as well as 
indoors, writes to me as follows : “You ask me to give 
you my plan of growing mushrooms in the fields during 
