re 
THE FLOEIST AND POMOLOGIST, 
[March, 
through the beds the resulting crops are light, 
the Mushrooms small, and the gatherings few. 
On this old exhaustive process of preparing 
the manure, Mr. Gilbert, of Burghley, a most 
successful grower of Mushrooms, both in 
houses and in the open air, remarks with 
great force, ‘ To gather horse droppings, then 
lay them in a shed, dry them and turn them 
till there is no strength left in them, and then 
to expect Mushrooms, is to me something 
like madness.’ 
“ If, on the other hand, droppings are plen¬ 
tiful, and enough is gathered in a short time 
for use, the material after sundry turnings is 
formed into a bed. In the majority of cases 
the heat is generated quickly and violently, 
and very frequently holes are made all over the 
bed with a dibber to reduce the temperature, 
which holes also serve as receptacles for lumps 
of spawn when the heat has subsided. This is 
not a sound mode of procedure, and if pro¬ 
ductive and long-lasting beds follow, it is more 
the result of chance than of good management. 
The only really satisfactory reflection in con¬ 
nection with such beds is, that it is somewhat 
difficult to prevent Mushrooms growing when 
good spawn is plentiful, and therefore when 
similar spawn is placed in a suitable medium 
good crops are easily produced. 
“ The last-named system is unsound in 
two respects. First, it is in the nature of 
fermenting materials that heat quickly and 
violently, to cool rapidly and suddenly, the 
inevitable result being that the bed is at first 
far too hot, and the means taken to cool it 
deprives it of its virtues—ammonia—and 
it is afterwards too cold for the requirements 
of the crop, and the Mushroom supply, if a 
supply follows, is necessarily of short duration. 
Secondly, when spawn is inserted in a smooth 
hole made with a dibber, and consequently 
tapering to a point, it is impossible that an 
angular substance can completely occupy the 
space that has thus been provided. There 
must at least be a cavity below the spawn, 
and there vapour, not always sweet, accumu¬ 
lates and prevents the growth of the mycelium. 
Much experience has shown that cultivators 
have too often to depend on weak and inferior 
spawn, but the same experience has also 
shown conclusively that much good spawn has 
been spoiled by the practice indicated. 
“ This ancient, tedious, and elaborate mode 
of collecting and preparing the manure is 
wrong in principle : still it may be urged that 
many good Mushroom beds have resulted 
from it. No doubt this is so, but failures 
have been still more numerous, and any prac¬ 
tice that produces more blanks than prizes is 
essentially faulty. The evils of overheating 
incident to the above process have been fre¬ 
quently mitigated and sometimes averted by 
mixing soil with the manure, and other 
methods that are known to cultivators ; but it 
is not for these, the few, that these remarks 
are intended, but for the far greater number 
—those, on the one hand, who know a little 
about the subject of Mushroom culture, but 
not enough for ensuring good beds always, 
and on the other that still greater body who 
know nothing about the practice, yet who 
have the means at disposal, and only need 
the skill for producing crops of great value. 
The object is to afford sound guidance for 
these, by first stating errors, that they may 
be avoided, and then submitting instructions 
as plainly and clearly as possible that they 
may be followed with a fair prospect if not an 
absolute assurance of success accruing. 
“ The next practice for avoidance is what 
may be termed the rough-and-ready one of 
first placing the manure, short straw and 
droppings, in a heap to heat, and when fer¬ 
mentation is brisk turning it over once or 
twice at the most, and then forming it into 
beds. Even if good crops of Mushrooms have 
followed, the practice is notwithstandingunsafe, 
and the material must have been specially 
sweet to begin with by previous fermentation 
and disturbance. The mycelium of the fungus 
will not permeate an impure medium. No 
plant requires purer and sweeter fare than 
the Mushroom does. Some other kinds of 
fungi will luxuriate in the most offensive 
matter, indeed such is essential to them, but 
this is certainly not one of them. If the 
manure of which a bed is made is in the 
slightest degree repulsive to the operator it 
will undoubtedly prove detrimental to the 
crop he is hoping to secure. So dainty is 
the Mushroom that it selects the healthiest, 
sweetest pastures for its home, and even soil 
that contains fresh manure is unsuitable for 
surfacing the beds. Avoid then, on the one 
