Young plants of the species liable to attack may be inoculated with the conidia of the species of Peronospora usually developed on that particular host, in the same manner that young cruciferous plants, watered with an infusion of the spores of Cystopus candidus, will soon exhibit evidence of attack from the white rust.
It is to the cultivation and close investigation of the growth and metamorphoses of the minute fungi that we must look for the most important additions which have yet to be made to our knowledge of the life-history of these most complex and interesting organisms.
Experiments were made at Belvoir, by Mr. Ingram, in the cultivation of several species of Agaricini, but without success, and a similar fate attended some spawn of a very superior kind from the Swan River, which was submitted to the late Mr. J. Henderson. No result was obtained at Chiswick, either from the cultivation of truffles or from the inoculation of grass-plots with excellent spawn. Mr. Disney’s experiments at the Hyde, near Ingatestone, were made with dried truffles, and were not likely to succeed. The Viscomte Nôe succeeded in obtaining abundant truffles, in an enclosed portion of a wood fenced from wild boars, by watering the ground with an infusion of fresh specimens; but it is possible that as this took place in a truffle country, there might have been a crop without any manipulation. Similar trials, and it is said successfully, have been made with Boletus edulis. Specimens of prepared truffle-spawn were sent many years since to the “Gardener’s Chronicle,” but they proved useless, if indeed they really contained any reliable spawn.
Robinson, “On Mushroom Culture,” London, 1870. Cuthill, “On the Cultivation of the Mushroom,” 1861. Abercrombie, “The Garden Mushroom; its Culture, &c.” 1802.
This has, however, not been confirmed, and is considered (how justly we cannot say) a “canard.”
This method is pursued with great success by Mr. Ingram, at Belvoir, and by Mr. Gilbert, at Burleigh.