72 
MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM. 
pile, and better have recourse to any method of drying 
the manure than use it wet. If, on account of the 
weather or lack of convenience for drying, the manure 
can not be dried enough, add dry loam, dry sand, dry 
half-rotted leaves, dry peat moss, dry chaff, or dry finely 
cut bay or straw, and mix together. 
The proper condition of the manure, as regards dry¬ 
ness or moistness, can readily be known by handling it. 
Take a handful of the manure and squeeze it tight; it 
should be unctuous enough to hold together in a lump, 
and so dry that you can not squeeze a drop of water 
out of it. 
Some private gardeners in England lay particular 
stress upon collecting the fresh droppings at the stables 
every day, and spreading them out upon a shed or barn 
floor to dry, and in this way keeping them dry and from 
heating until enough has accumulated for a bed, when 
the bed is made up entirely of this material, or of part 
of this and part of loam. But market gardeners, the 
ones whose bread and butter depend upon the crops 
they raise, never practice this method, and that patri¬ 
arch in the business, Richard Gilbert, denounces the 
practice unstintedly. 
Different growers have different ideas of preparing 
manure for mushroom beds, but the aim of all is to get 
it into the best possible condition with the least labor 
and expense, and to guard against depriving it of any 
more ammonia than can be helped. See Mr, Gardner’s 
method of preparing manure, p. 22. 
Loam and Manure Mixed.—Mushroom beds are 
often formed of loam and manure mixed together, say 
one-third or one-fourth part of the whole being loam, 
and the other two-thirds or three-fourths manure; if a 
larger proportion of loam is used it will render the beds 
rather cold unless they are made unusually deep. I am 
not prepared to affirm or deny that this mixed material 
