102 
MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM. 
apparent injurious effect. When I was connected with 
the London market gardens, some twenty years ago, 
Steele, Bagley, Broadbent, and the other large mush¬ 
room growers in the Fulham Fields cased all of their 
beds with the common garden soil—perhaps the most 
manure-tilled soil on the face of the earth—and spurious 
fungi never troubled them. Indeed, I can not under¬ 
stand why it should produce baneful crops of toadstools 
when used in mushroom beds, and no toadstools when 
used for other horticultural purposes, as on our carna¬ 
tion benches in greenhouses, in our lettuce or cucumber 
beds, or in the case of potted plants. True, spurious 
fungi may appear in the earth on our greenhouse benches 
or frame beds or mushroom beds at any time and in 
more or less quantity, but I am convinced that the rich 
earth of the vegetable garden has no more to do with 
producing toadstools than has any other good soil, and 
old manure has far less to do with it than has fresh 
manure. 
All practical gardeners know how apt hotbeds, in 
spring when their heat is on the decline, are to produce 
a number of toadstools; and, also, that when the bed is 
“spent,” that is, when the heat is altogether gone, the 
tendency to bear toadstools has gone too. This peculiar¬ 
ity is more apparent in spring than in fall. All mush¬ 
room growers know that spurious fungi, when they 
appear at all, are most numerous three to two weeks 
before it is time for the mushrooms to come in sight. 
The same growth appears in the manure piles out in the 
yard; a few weeks after the strong heat of the manure 
has gone lots of toadstools may be observed on and about 
the heaps, but on the piles of well-rotted cold manure 
we seldom find toadstools at all. 
The fresh, clean stable manure used in mushroom- 
growing is not apt to be charged with the spores of per¬ 
nicious toadstools; their presence is always most marked 
in the case of mixed manures. 
