114 
MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM. 
of the beds, always on the bare places, never touching 
the mushrooms, and leave it there for a day or two, 
then with a fine, gentle sprinkling of water wash it into 
the soil. This is to help destroy the anguillulae. As a 
fertilizer only dissolve four ounces of salt in ten gallons 
of water, and with this sprinkle the beds. 
A too dry atmosphere can be remedied by sprinkling 
the floors, walls, or litter coverings on the beds with 
water, not heavily or copiously, but gently and only 
enough to wet the surfaces; better moisten in this wav 
frequently than drench the place at any one time. But 
I very much dislike sprinkling the beds in order to 
moisten the atmosphere. An experienced man can tell 
in a moment whether or not the atmosphere of the mush¬ 
room house is too dry. The air in the mushroom house 
should always feel moist, at the same time not raw or 
chilly, and the floor and wall surfaces should present a 
slow tendency to dry up, and the earth on the beds 
should retain its dark, moist appearance. The least 
tendency to dryness should at once be relieved by damp¬ 
ing the wall and floor surfaces. 
In houses heated by smoke flues, or still more by ordi¬ 
nary stoves and sheet iron pipes, it may be necessary to 
dampen the floors and walls once or several times a day 
to maintain a sufficiently moist atmosphere, but where 
hot water pipes are used and the houses are tight enough 
to require but little artificial heat, such frequent sprink¬ 
ling will not be necessary. In the case of beds in un¬ 
heated structures the ordinary atmosphere is generally 
moist enough. 
Manure Steam for Moistening the Atmosphere. 
The late James Barnes, of England, a grand old gar¬ 
dener, writing in the London Garden , Yol. Ill, page 486, 
describes his method of growing mushrooms sixty years 
ago, and says : “In winter a nice moist heat was main¬ 
tained by placing hot stable manure inside, and often 
