Mushroom (Psalliota Campestris)

To make a mushroom bed well you must get some short dung, consisting chiefly of horse-droppings, and turn it over several times, shaking about each time to moderate the heat. Then choose the spot for the bed. If you have a shed of any kind it is better than the open air, and if you are obliged to do it in the open air, choose a wall if you have it. The difference is, that where you form your bed against the wall, you form only half a ridge; the wall being merely a place to pile up your dung against. If you do it under a shed or in the open air, to form a ridge lay the dung from four to five feet wide at the bottom, and as long as the bed is to be; pile up the dung, making it narrower as you proceed, until you bring it two to three feet thick on the top, patting it close with the dung-fork, but not treading it together or pressing too hard, and when the heat is moderate and there is a gentle warmth - as warm as new milk - make it level; then break your mushroom spawn into pieces as large as hens' eggs, tuck them just under the surface, six inches apart, all over the bed, put it level with the back of the spade, and cover the surface all over, an inch and a half thick, with good working loam or soil from the kitchen garden ; cover the whole with clean long straw, eight or ten inches thick, to keep it from wind and wet.

There it must bide till it bears. Of course it must be examined once or twice a week, and when it begins to bear the mushrooms must be pulled up with a twist, not cut off.

Another way of growing mushrooms is to appropriate a declining melon or cucumber frame, and plant spawn in lumps as large as before described, four inches asunder, all over it, an inch and a half deep, and cover up with the glass, and, if necessary, keep it from frost by covering with litter or mats also. This method will rarely fail to yield a good crop.

Another style, simple enough in itself, is resorted to by persons even in London, and in wine or beer cellars. A shelf, from nine inches to a foot wide, is put up, with an edge standing up three inches. Horse-droppings, in a state of ferment or very moderate heat, are put on this shelf, and pressed in a sloping direction against the back, so that it is two inches thick in front next the edge, and eight inches thick behind. Upon this place, three or four inches apart, pieces of spawn as large as walnuts, then an inch of dry loam. Pat this firmly down and the bed is complete.

The last method we shall describe is of so simple a character that there is no reason why every person who owns a cellar or an outhouse should not have mushrooms on the table weekly through the whole winter and spring. Nothing is requisite but a covering from the wet and extremes of weather. Few persons but can obtain a little fresh horse manure, which is the only material requisite; and the following is the way to proceed: - Procure fresh manure from, the stable-door before rain has penetrated it, if possible. Now, there is no necessity for fermenting it - strong fermentations are to be avoided; nevertheless, in damp and cool weather, a little fermentation expedites the process. Let it then be thrown in a heap for a week, after shaking out a little of the mire and straw, then let it be spread anywhere under cover to dry. It will require turning a few times, and when about three parts dry may be made into a bed. For a flat bed (which this is to be) on the floor, about eight or ten inches in depth is sufficient, and the dung must be spread in layers of about three inches in thickness, which layers must be well beat in succession with the back of the spade; the harder it is beat and the firmer it is rendered in texture the finer will the mushrooms be, and the longer will the bed endure.

Thus in succession must the bed be beaten or trodden hard, and when finished it should be as firm as the turf in the meadows. When ready holes should be made to insert the spawn, at about one foot apart. The spawn is not to be inserted immediately, for the bed will be in all probability too hot; the heat will rise for about ten days to its maximum, and then fall gradually, and it is when it begins to fall that the spawn should be inserted. It should be spawned when the bed is from seventy-five to eighty degrees; if higher the spawn will be destroyed if much lower the bed will be some time before it bears. In a day or two after spawning the bed must have soil put over it two inches thick, and this must be beat firmly also, and made smooth. Little will be needed after this; the bed must be protected with some litter, so as to sustain a small amount of warmth constantly. It should be kept at about sixty degrees, if possible. Just as the first mushrooms begin to show, the bed should have a slight watering, if dry, with tepid water.

The best months to make mushroom beds are August and September; these will supply the table from October until Christmas. Beds made before and afterwards must be indoors.