Should any portion of the bed get very dry, water of a temperature of 90° is given gently and somewhat sparingly through a fine-spraying water-pot rose, or syringe. Enough water is never given at any one time to penetrate through the casing into the manure below or the spawn in the manure. But rather than make a practice of watering the beds, Mr. Gardner finds it is better to maintain a moist atmosphere, and thus lessen the necessity for watering.
Mr. Gardner firmly believes that the mushrooms derive much nourishment from the "steam" of fermenting fresh horse manure, and by using this "steam" in our mushroom houses we can maintain an atmosphere almost moist enough to be able to dispense with the use of the syringe, and the mushrooms are fatter and heavier for it. And he practices what he preaches. In one end of his mushroom cellar he has a very large, deep, open box, half filled with steaming fresh horse-droppings, and once or twice a day he tosses these over with a dung-fork, in order to raise a "steam," which it certainly does. It is also for this purpose that he introduces the loam so soon when making the beds, so that it may become charged with food that otherwise would be dissipated in the atmosphere.
There is a marked difference between the mushrooms raised from the French flake spawn and those from the English brick spawn, but he has never observed any distinct varieties from the same kind of spawn. Sometimes a few mushrooms will appear that are somewhat differently formed from those of the general crop, but this he regards as the result of cultural conditions rather than of true varietal differences.
His last year's bed began bearing early in November, and continued to bear a good crop until the first of May. After that time, no matter what the crop may be, the mushrooms become so infested with maggots as to be perfectly worthless, and they are cleared out. It is on account of the large body of manure in the bed, and the low, genial, and equable temperature of the cellar that the beds in this house always continue so long in good cropping condition.
Some years ago the mushrooms were not gathered till their heads had opened out flat, but nowadays the marketmen like to get them when they are quite young and before the skin of the frill between the cup and the stem has broken apart. A good market is found in New York, Philadelphia and Boston.
Mr. Denton's Method.—Mr. W. H. Denton, of Woodhaven, L. I., is an extensive market gardener about ten miles from New York. During the summer months he grows outdoor vegetables for the New York and Brooklyn markets, and in winter mushrooms in cellars. He has no greenhouses. Under his barns he has two large cellars which he devotes entirely to mushroom-growing in winter. The cellars are seven and one-half feet high inside; the beds five feet wide, nine inches deep, two feet apart, and run parallel to one another the whole length of the cellar. The beds are three deep, that is, one bed is made upon the floor, and the other two, rack or shelf fashion, are made above the floor bed, and two and one-half feet apart from the bottom of the one bed to the bottom of the one above it. The shelves altogether are temporary structures built of ordinary rough scantling and hemlock boards, and the beds are all one board deep.
A common iron stove and string of sheet iron smoke pipes are used for heating the cellars. But he tells me the parching effect is very visible on the beds, it dries them up on the surface very much, and he has to sprinkle them frequently with water to keep them moist enough. During the late summer and fall months, on his return trips from the Brooklyn markets, Mr. Denton hauls home fresh horse manure from the City stables. All that he can put on a wagon costs him about twenty-five cents; and this is what he uses for mushrooms. He prepares it in a large open shed just above the cellar, and when it is fit for use he adds about one-third of its bulk of loam. The loam is the ordinary field soil from his market garden. He tells me he has better success with beds made up in this way than when manure alone is used. We all know how very heavily market gardeners manure their land, also how vigorously most writers on mushroom culture denounce the use of manure-fatted loam in mushroom beds, but here is Mr. Denton, the most successful grower of mushrooms for market in the neighborhood of New York, practicing the very thing that is denounced! While he likes good lively manure to begin with he is very careful not to use it soon enough to run any risk of overheating in the beds. The loam in the manure counteracts this strong heating tendency, also with the loam mixture the shelf-beds can be built much more firmly than with plain manure on the springy boards. When the temperature falls to 90° he spawns the beds.
He uses both French and brick spawn, but leans with most favor to the latter, of which in the fall 1889 he used 400 lbs. He markets from 1700 to 2500 lbs. of mushrooms a year from these two cellars. Mr. Denton believes emphatically in cleanliness in the mushroom cellar, and ascribes his best successes to his most thorough cleaning. Every summer he cleans out his cellars and limewashes all over.
Mr. Van Siclen's Method.—Mr. Abram Van Siclen, of Jamaica, L. I., also grows mushrooms very extensively in underground cellars, whose arrangements do not differ materially from those of Mr. Denton's, except in his manner of heating. He runs an immense greenhouse vegetable-growing establishment, as well as a summer truck farm, and uses hot water heating apparatus, also smoke flues as employed ordinarily in greenhouses, especially lettuce houses. The sheet iron pipes, except in squash houses, he does not hold in much favor.