274. Kitchen Garden
This is one of the most important parts of general domestic economy, whenever the situation of a house and the size of the garden will permit the members of a family to avail themselves of the advantages it offers. It is, indeed, much to be regretted that small plots of ground, in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis more especially, are too often converted into flower gardens and shrubberies, or used as mere play-grounds for children, when they might more usefully be employed in raising vegetables for the family. With a little care and attention, a kitchen garden, though small, might be rendered not only useful, but, in fact, as ornamental as a modern grass lawn; and the same expense incurred to make the ground a laboratory of sweets, might suffice to render it agreeable to the palate as well as to the olfactory nerves, and that even without offending the most delicate optics. It is only in accordance with our plan to give the hint and to put before the reader such novel points as may facilitate the proposed arrangement.
It is one objection to the formation of a kitchen garden in front of the dwelling, or in sight of the drawing-room and parlour, that its very nature makes it rather an eyesore than otherwise at all seasons. This, however, may be readily got over by a little attention to neatness and good order, for the vegetables themselves, if properly attended to, may be made really ornamental; but then, in cutting the plants for use, the business must be done neatly—all useless leaves cleared from the ground, the roots no longer wanted taken up, and the ravages of insects guarded against by sedulous extirpation. It will also be found a great improvement, where space will admit of it, to surround the larger plots of ground, in which the vegetables are grown, with flower borders stocked with herbaceous plants and others, such as annuals and bulbs in due order of succession, or with neat espaliers, with fruit trees, or even gooseberry and currant bushes, trained along them, instead of being suffered to grow in a state of ragged wildness, as is too often the case.
A Waiting Appetite Kindles Many a Spite.
275. Artificial Mushroom Beds
Mushrooms may be grown in pots, boxes, or hampers. Each box may be about three feet long, one and a half broad, and seven inches in depth. Let each box be half filled with manure in the form of fresh horse-dung from the stables, the fresher the better, but if wet, it should be allowed to dry for three or four days before it is put into the boxes. When the manure has been placed in the box it should be well beaten down. After the second or third day, if the manure has begun to generate heat, break each brick of mushroom spawn (which may be obtained from any seedsman) into pieces about three inches square, then lay the pieces about four inches apart upon the surface of the manure in the box; here they are to lie for six days, when it will probably be found that the side of the spawn next to the manure has begun to run in the manure below; then add one and a half inch more of fresh manure on the top of the spawn in the box, and beat it down as formerly. In the course of a fortnight, when you find that the spawn has run through the manure, the box will be ready to receive the mould on the top; this mould must be two and a half inches deep, well beaten down, and the surface made quite even.
In the space of five or six weeks the mushrooms will begin to come up; if the mould then seems dry, give it a gentle watering with lukewarm water. The box will continue to produce from six weeks to two months, if duly attended to by giving a little water when dry, for the mushrooms need neither
light
nor