Watering

In autumn, the bed will not require water until the first crop is gathered, but it is then to be repeated after every gathering; a sprinkling only is necessary. In spring and summer, during dry weather, the same course is to be pursued. As excessive or unequal moisture is studiously to be avoided, the best mode of applying the water is to pour it through a rose pan on to a thin layer of hay, which has previously been spread over the bed, and thus allowed to percolate by degrees. In winter, waterings are not allowable; to keep the mould moist, hot fermenting mulch may be put on outside the covering. If the bed is in the open ground, in a warm day succeeding to wet weather, it may be left uncovered for not more than two or three hours. During excessive rains, the additional covering of mats, etc, must be afforded; and on the other hand, if a moderate warm shower occurs during summer after excessive droughts, it may be fully admitted, by taking off the covering.

Mode Of Gathering

In gathering, the covering being carefully turned off, only such are to be taken as are half an inch or more in diameter before they become flat, but are compact and firm. Old mushrooms, especially, should be rejected for the table, as it is found that some which are innoxious when young, become dangerous when tending to decay; they also then lose much of their flavour.

Each individual is detached by a gentle twist completely to the root; a knife must never be employed, for the stumps left in the ground decay, and become the nursery of maggots, which are liable to infect the succeeding crop.

Other Modes Of Cultivation

Some gardeners merely vary from the preceding by building entirely of dung, without any layers of earth. Many garden-cars grow mushrooms in the same bed with their melons and cucumbers. The spawn is inserted in the mould and on the hills of the beds, as soon as the burning heat is passed.

In September or October, when the bines of the plant decay, the bed is then carefully cleaned, the glasses put on and kept close, and when the mould becomes dry, water is frequently but moderately given, as well as every gentle shower admitted when necessary. A gentle heat is thus caused, and the produce is extraordinarily abundant, frequently two bushels, from a frame ten feet by six, and individuals have been produced two pounds in weight.

Mushrooms are thus produced without any trouble but the giving moderate waterings until frost prevents their vegetation; the glasses, if wanted, are then removed, and the beds covered 25 lightly with straw, but not otherwise. The warm showers of the ensuing spring will again cause an abundant production, as also in the autumn, if left; but the beds are generally broken up for the sake of the dung, and the spawn collected and dried.

Hampers or boxes containing about four inches depth of fresh, dry stable dung, or, in preference, of a mixture of three barrow loads of horse dung, and one perfectly dry cow dung, well pressed in, may be set in some situation, where neither damp nor frost can enter. After two or three days, or as soon as heat is generated, the spawn may be inserted, a mushroom brick to be broken into three equal parts, and each fragment to be laid four inches asunder, on the surface of the dung; after six days an inch and a half depth of fresh dung to be beaten down as before. In the course of a fortnight, or as soon as it is found that the spawn has run nearly through the whole of the dung, mould must be applied two inches and a half thick, and the surface made level. This mould must be prepared six months before wanted, by laying alternate layers, of six inches depth, of fresh stable dung, and three inches of light mould, to such an .extent as may be deemed necessary for the supply of a year; in six months the dung will be sufficiently decayed, and the whole may then be broken together, and passed through a garden sieve for use. In five or six weeks the mushrooms will begin to come up, and if the mould appear dry, may then be gently watered; the water being slightly heated.

Each box will continue in production six or eight weeks.

Mr. J. Oldaker, late gardener to the Emperor of Russia, introduced a house purposely constructed for the growth of the mushroom. The house is found of great use in storing brocoli during the winter. It is usually built against the back wall of a forcing house, as in the annexed plan, but if built unconnected with another building, the only necessary alteration is to have a hipped instead of a lean-to roof. The outside wall, g h, should be eight feet and a half high for four heights, the width ten feet within the walls, which is most convenient, as it admits shelves three feet and a half wide on each side, and a space up the middle three feet wide, for a double flue, and wall upon it.

When the outside of the house is finished, a floor or ceiling is made over it, as high as the top of the outside walls, of boards one inch thick, and plastered on the upper side, e e, with road sand, well wrought together, an inch thick; square trunks,/, being left in the ceiling nine inches in diameter, up the middle of the house, at six feet apart, with slides, s, to ventilate with when necessary.

Fig. 102.

Two single brick walls, v v, each five bricks high, are then to be erected at three feet and a half from the outside walls, to hold up the sides of the floor beds, a a, and form at the same time one side of the air flues. Upon these walls, v v, are to be laid planks four inches and a half wide and three inches thick, in which are to be mortised the standards, I k, which support the shelves. These standards to be three inches and a half square, and four feet and a half asunder, fastened at the top, k k, into the ceiling. The cross bearers, i i, i i, which support the shelves, o o, must be mortised into the bearers and into the walls; the first set of bearers being two feet from the floor, and each succeeding one to be at the. same distance from the one below it. The shelves, o o, are to be of boards one inch and a half thick; each shelf having a ledge in front, of boards one inch thick, and eight inches deep, to support the front of the beds, fastened outside the standards. The flue to commence at the end of the house next the door, and running the whole length to return back paralleled, and communicate with the chimney; the walls of the insides to be the height of four bricks laid flat, and six inches wide; this will allow a cavity, t, on each side betwixt the flues, two inches wide, to admit the heat from their sides into the house.

The middle cavity, x y,should be covered with tiles, leaving a space of one inch betwixt each. The top of the flue, including the covering, should not be higher than the walls that form the fronts of the floor beds. The wall itself is covered with three rows of tiles, the centre one covering the cavity x y, as before mentioned, the outside cavities, t t, are left uncovered.

As the compost, the formation of the beds, etc, are very different from the common practice, I shall give a connected view ofMr. Oldaker's directions. The compost employed is fresh horse-dung, which has been subject neither to wet nor fermentation, cleared of the long straw, but one-fourth of the short litter allowed to remain, with one-fourth of dry turf mould, or other fresh earth: this enables the bed to be made solid and compact, which is so congenial to the growth of mushrooms.

The beds are to be made by placing a layer of the above compost, three inches thick, on the shelves and floor, which must be beat as close as possible with a flat mallet, fresh layers being added and consolidated until the bed is seven inches thick, and its surface as level as possible. If the beds are thicker, the fermentation caused will be too powerful; or, if much less, the heat will be insufficient for the nourishment of the spawn. As soon as the beds intimate a warmth of 80° or 90°, they are to be beat a second time to render them still more solid, and holes made with a dibble, three inches in diameter and nine apart, through the compost, in every part of the beds; these prevent too great a degree of heat arising and causing rottenness.

If the beds do not attain a proper heat in four or five days after being put together, another layer, two inches thick, must be added. If this does not increase the heat, part of the beds must be removed and fresh horse-droppings mixed with the remainder. The spawn is to be inserted in three or four days after making the holes; when the thermometer indicates the desired degree of heat, the insides of the holes are dry; and while the heat is on a decline, every hole is to be filled, either with lumps or small fragments well beaten in, and the surface made level.

In a fortnight, if the spawn is vegetating freely, which it will if not damaged by excess of heat or moisture, and the beds are required for immediate production, they may be earthed over; but those for succession left unearthed, three or four weeks in summer, and four or five in winter. If the spawn is introduced in hot weather, air must be admitted as freely as possible until it has spread itself through the beds, otherwise these will become spongy, and the crop be neither good nor abundant.

The mould employed should be maiden earth, with turf well reduced; neither too dry nor too wet, otherwise it will not be capable of being beat solid. It must be. laid regularly over the beds two inches thick. From the time of moulding, the room is to be kept at a temperature of 50° or 55°. If higher, it will weaken or destroy the spawn; if lower, it will vegetate slowly, and if watered in that state, numbers of mushrooms will be prevented attaining perfection. Water must be applied with extreme caution, being nearly as warm as new milk, and sprinkled over the beds with a syringe or small watering-pot. Cold water destroys both the crop and the beds. If suffered to become dry, it is better to give several light than one heavy watering.

Beds thus managed will bear for several months; and a constant supply kept up by earthing one bed or more every two or three months.

If, when in full production, the mushrooms become long-stemmed and weak, the temperature is certainly too high, and air must be proportionately admitted. As the beds decline, to renovate them, the earth must be taken off clean, and if the dung is decayed they must be reformed, any good spawn being preserved that may appear; but if the beds are dry, solid, and full of good spawn, a fresh layer of compost, three or four inches thick, must be added, mixed a little with the old, and beat solid as before.

Mushrooms may be grown in a cellar, or other vaulted place, with equal success, and not unfrequently with a greater advantage, the same rules being adopted; but no fire is necessary, and less water.