MUSHROOMS.
Under certain favored circumstances the mushroom may be grown as a farm gardener's crop. The requisites are horse manure and a dark cellar, cave or vault. If the manure be available and a suitable apartment at hand, the growing of mushrooms may be taken up for winter work.
A Bed of Mushrooms from English Milltrack Spawn.
There are many ways of growing mushrooms, and they can be produced in any situation where a steady temperature of 60° can be maintained. A simple method is to prepare a bed consisting of horse manure and loam, three parts by measure of the former and one of the latter, the manure having been somewhat fermented and sweetened by allowing it to heat and turning it several times. A compact bed a foot deep is made. This bed will first heat and then cool. As it cools, when at 80° or 85° an inch below the surface, bits of brick spawn the size of a hen's egg are inserted about 9 inches apart.
The bed must not be immediately covered, or the temperature will rise sufficiently to kill the spawn. In ten days, more or less, as shown by a thermometer, this danger will be past, and the bed should receive a coating of good loam an inch deep. No water is to be applied until after the bed is in full bearing.
It is assumed that the temperature of the room or cellar has been uniformly 60°, day and night; that the bed has not been made where it could become water-soaked; that it is sufficiently moist, yet not wet; and that no draft of air has passed over the surface in a way either to reduce the temperature of the bed itself or to dry the soil upon the surface. If these conditions cannot be maintained, either by a specially favorable place or by means of covering the bed with litter, it is better to let mushrooms alone.
The crop should appear in six or eight weeks, and should last two months, the total product being from one-half to one pound per square foot. The cash price is from 50 to 75 cents per pound in the large cities; and the crop is sufficiently profitable to warrant the losses which beginners so commonly experience. These losses are the result of carelessness or ignorance in the matter of details.
The usual sources of failure are poorly prepared beds, the medium being either too wet or too dry; frequent changes of temperature; improper use of water; and, lastly, poor or stale spawn.
Mushrooms are packed in small baskets lined with paper, and carefully covered to prevent evaporation. A five-pound package is a favorite shipping size.