66 
MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM. 
it beautifully, and it bears fine mushrooms. Still, it is 
no better than plain horse manure. The poorest kind 
of cow manure is the fresh manure of cattle fed with 
green grass, ensilage, and root crops; indeed, such ma¬ 
nure can not be used alone; it needs to be freely mixed 
with some absorbent, as dry loam, German moss, dry 
horse droppings, and the like, and even then I have 
utterly failed to perceive its advantages; it is a dirty 
mass to work, and quite cold. 
In the manufacture of spawn, however, cow manure is 
a requisite ingredient, and here again the manure of dry 
fed animals is better than that of those fed with green 
and other soft food. But my chief objection to the use 
of cow manure in the mushroom beds is that it is a 
favorite breeding and feeding place for hosts of perni¬ 
cious bugs and grubs and earth worms,—creatures that 
we had better repel from, rather than encourage in, our 
mushroom beds. 
German Peat Moss Stable Manure for Mush¬ 
room Beds.—Although I have not 
yet had an opportunity of trying 
this material for mushroom beds, 
Mr. Gardner, of Jobstown, has great 
faith in it; so, too, has that prince 
of English mushroom growers, Bich¬ 
ard Gilbert, of Burghley, who re¬ 
lates his success with it in growing Fig . 20 . bale of ger- 
mushrooms in the English garden MAN peat moss. 
papers. This peat moss is a comparatively new thing in 
this country, and is used in place of straw for bedding 
horses. It is a great absorbent and soaks up much of 
the urine that, were straw used instead, would be likely 
to pass off into the drains. To this is ascribed its great 
virtue in mushroom culture. It should be mixed with 
loam when used for mushroom beds. 
Sawdust Stable Manure for Mushroom Beds.— 
This is the manure obtained from stables where sawdust 
