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MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM:. 
an unsettled question. Some growers recommend three* 
fourths of an inch, others one, one and one-half, two, 
or two and one-half inches, and some of our best grow¬ 
ers of fifty or seventy-fiye years ago were emphatic in 
asserting three inches as the proper depth, but among 
recent writers I do not find any who go beyond two and 
one-half inches. My own experience is in fayor of a 
heavy covering, say one and one-half to two inches. In 
the case of a thin covering the mushrooms come up all 
right but their texture is not as solid as it is in the case 
of a heavy covering, nor do the beds continue as long in 
Gearing; besides, “fogging off” is much more prevalent 
under thinly covered than under heavily covered beds; 
also, when the coating of loam is heavy a great many 
more of the “pinheads” develop into full sized mush¬ 
rooms than in the case of thinly molded beds. 
Opinions differ as to firming the soil. I am in favor 
of packing the soil quite firm, and have never seen good 
mushrooms that could not come through a well firmed 
casing of loam, and I never knew of an instance where 
firm casing stopped or checked the spreading of the 
mycelium or the development of the mushrooms. In the 
case of flat beds,—for instance, those made on shelves 
and floors,—a slightly compacted coating (and this is all 
Mr. J. G. Gardner uses) may be all right, but in the 
case of alongside-of-walls, ridge, and other rounded beds 
I much prefer and always use solidly compacted casings. 
Mr. Henshaw has for several years used green sods 
about two inches thick, put all over the bed, grass side 
down, and beaten firmly. The advantage of using sods 
instead of soil, he thinks, is that the young clusters of 
mushrooms never damp or ‘fogg off 5 as they are apt to 
do when soil is used. 
I have given this green sods method repeated and 
careful trials, and am satisfied that it has no advantages, 
in any way, over common fibrous loam; indeed, it is 
