1 June, 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 439 
One of the strangest things about them is that they can be produced 
spontaneously, as it were, from a bed of manure and earth properly prepared 
and eared for. - 
Without spawn or seed of any kind, if the work is properly done, after a 
few weeks the mushrooms will spring up from a bed of this kind, and for 
about three weeks they can be gathered. But that exhausts the bed, and you 
will never get another mushroom from it unless spawn is introduced. It would 
appear that the seed is in the mixture of manure and earth naturally, and 
needs only proper conditions of warmth and dampness to bring it to perfection. 
These mushrooms produced in this way are rather an inferior grade, however, 
and do not compare with those raised in the usual manner from purchased 
English spawn. 
Cultivated mushrooms also are far superior to the wild variety. ‘The 
latter do not attain the size and fleshiness of the former, owing to want of 
proper conditions and sudden changes of température. To raise them in 
perfection, a heat of from 60 degtees to 70 degrees Fahr. is sufficient. To be 
palatable, they must be fresh. In very warm weather they will not keep well, — 
and in wet weather will become maggotty. The gills (or underside of the 
mushroom) turn black when too old or damaged by weather, and a few black- 
gilled mushrooms will damage a whole basket{ful if they are kept together for 
even a whole day. They also lose their flavour, and get tough if picked for 
any length of time. Fresh mushrooms are very brittle, and must be picked 
with great care, and broken mushrooms are not eagerly bought up by lovers of 
this edible. In France, and I believe also in America, mushrooms are grown 
in cellars. In Paris there is a vast number of cellars devoted to their cultiva- 
tion, and also to that of the “Champignon,” a more slender kind of mushroom 
and of more delicate flavour. It is, however, difficult to distinguish between 
the Champignon and poisonous fungi of similar appearance, and many persons 
have suffered from eating what they, in their ignorance, had gathered for Cham- 
pignons, but which were, in English, “ Toadstools.’’ I have not seen the 
Champignon in Queensland; but there is no reason why it should not be found 
here as well as the mushroom and the truffle. 
CELLAR CULTIVATION. 
The first requisite is equable temperature; the next, dampness; and the 
third, gloom. The best way to prepare the cellar is to build shelves all round 
the walls and in the centre, indeed anywhere, so long as room is allowed to pass 
between the shelves. On these shelves boxes a foot deep are placed. They may 
be of any suitable width and length, but they must have the depth. 
As soon as the boxes are in position, the next thing is to prepare 
the beds for the reception of the spawn. I have already shown how to 
prepare the bed in the open, and the same method will serve for the cellar bed, 
the spawn being put in a little further apart than was the case in the garden, 
the reason being that we shall have a larger crop on a given area owing to the 
superior conditions of temperature and damp. Sixteen inches is not too great 
a distance between the fragments of spawn. ‘The temperature must be kept 
at about 60 degrees or at the most 70 degrees I’., and such a temperature is 
easily maintained in a cellar even in our hotmonths, Next comes the question 
of dampness. ‘This is essential. But it is not always necessary to water the 
beds. As before said, too much water is injurious to the spawn as well as to 
the mushroom. The plan adopted in Paris cellars is to water the stone or brick 
floor and also to sprinkle the walls. In America the same thing is done by 
cellar growers. I lately came across a Chicago paper in which some account 
was given of a celebrated mushroom-grower (W. C. Blakemon) in Chicago, — 
who realises 2 handsome income by growing mushrooms ina dark cellar-like 
barn in the heart of the city. He has a number of boxes of earth, piled 
over each other, resting on shelves arranged like the bunks in an emigrant ship. 
Narrow aisles run between to enable him to attend to his crop. Except for the 
