MANURE FOR MUSHROOM BEDS. 
67 
has been used for bedding for the horses. It is a good 
absorbent and retains considerable of the stable wettings. 
Such manure ferments well, makes up nicely into beds, 
the mycelium runs well in it, and good mushrooms are 
produced from it. But if I could get any other fairly 
good manure I wouldn’t use it. I remember seeing it at 
Mr. Henshaw’s place some years ago. He had bought a 
quantity of fresh stable manure from the Brighton coal 
yards, where sawdust had been used for bedding for the 
horses, and this he used for his mushroom beds. I went 
back again in a few months to see the bed in bearing, 
but it was not a success. At the same time, some 
Enropean growers record great success with sawdust 
stable manure. George Bolas, Hopton, Wirkeworth, 
England, sent specimens of mushrooms that he grew on 
sawdust manure beds to the editor of the Garden , who 
pronounced them “in every way excellent.” Mr. Bolas 
says : “In making up the bed I mixed about one-third 
of burnt earth with the sawdust, sand, and droppings. 
The mushrooms were longer in coming up than usual, 
the bed being in a close shed, without any heat 
whatever. They have, however, far exceeded my 
expectations.” 
Bichard Gilbert, of Burghley, also wrote to the Garden , 
April 25, 1885: “There is nothing new in growing 
mushrooms in sawdust. I have done it here for years 
past; that is to say, after it had done service as a bed 
for horses, and got intermixed with their droppings. I 
have never been able to detect the least difference in size 
or quality between mushrooms grown in sawdust and 
those produced in the ordinary way.” 
Tree Leaves.—Forest tree leaves are often used for 
mushroom beds, sometimes alone, instead of manure, but 
more frequently mixed with horse manure to increase 
the bulk of the fermenting material. Oak tree leaves 
are the best; quick-rotting leaves, like those of the 
