Cleansing the House.
A word as to the necessity of a thorough annual cleansing of the mushroom-house. The fact that the French cave-cultivators find it necessary to shift from cave to cave, and find that after a cave has been in use a certain time, mushrooms cease to be produced in it, should act as a caution in this respect. In summer, when there is no need to attempt the culture indoors, the house should be thoroughly cleaned out, lime-whited, every surface scraped and washed, and the house freely opened, so as to thoroughly sweeten it.
CHAPTER V.
CULTURE IN SHEDS, CELLARS, ARCHES, OUTHOUSES, AND ALL ENCLOSED STRUCTURES OTHER THAN THE MUSHROOM-HOUSE.
Mushrooms may be, and are, grown to perfection in many less ambitious structures than the mushroom-house proper. Any species of outhouse will do for the autumn and early winter crops. One of the best crops I have ever seen was grown in a dry and unused coach-house. Mr. Robert Fish grows all his crops in a long, low, rude thatched shed, open in front—the beds flat, in a continuous line against a wall, and enclosed by a low board. Mr. Cuthill, who wrote on mushrooms, and who used to grow them very well, grew his in rude sheds placed against walls. It matters not in the least if the shed be open or ventilated here and there, especially for autumn crops, as I have seen admirable crops in low outhouses searched by every gust, and not heated by flues. The beds in these should always be covered with hay. Mushrooms may be grown in cellars; but cellars being commonly under houses, they are not exactly the places to which people like to convey the materials necessary for the making of mushroom-beds. Where they occur away from a dwelling-house, this objection will not hold good. In some cases it might be obviated by making the beds in rough boxes, say 3½ ft. long by 1½ ft. wide, and afterwards introducing them into the cellar. Railway or other arches, or any dry and empty structures, may be used for mushroom-growing.
“The construction,” says Mr. William Ingram, of Belvoir, in a letter to the Field, “of efficient mushroom-houses is sufficiently understood by most of our hothouse-builders and by gardeners; but the economical adaptation of places which already exist is a matter which may with the greatest advantage be discussed, as there are hundreds of persons about whose establishments may be found outhouses, cellars, quarries, or sheds, capable of conversion into mushroom-houses, who would be very glad to be taught the method of growing mushrooms, and to have the simple principles that should govern the construction of mushroom-houses explained.
“There are few large farmsteads that are without an unconsidered place which could be readily adapted for the purpose of growing mushrooms; and farmers possess the material at hand, horse manure, which would not suffer great deterioration if employed in first raising a crop of mushrooms. Country brewing establishments have equal conveniences and opportunities. By relating the means by which I have been for several years able to raise large quantities of excellent mushrooms, in a place originally but ill adapted for the purpose, I may induce some of those persons who desire the luxury of what Soyer called ‘the Pearl of the Fields,’ to turn their attention to the subject of their growth.
“I had a large, open, airy shed at command, but it was liable to be affected by changes in the weather, and was altogether too draughty and cold in winter, and too hot in summer. I built within this shed, with rough fir boards, an inner shed, 18 ft. long, 6 ft. wide, and 8 ft. in height; two receptacles for beds were formed, one on the floor, the other above it: and to give the requisite heat in winter, I passed a flue, formed of 9-in. socket pipes, through the house; with this I can always command an adequate amount of heat. The material of which the beds are formed is chiefly droppings, collected from an enclosed and covered exercise ground. These droppings are trampled by the horses, and mixed with straw broken up with the manure by the passage of the horses.