Mushrooms: how to grow them, William Falconer [best novels to read to improve english TXT] 📗

marked off into halves. On one half (No. 1) a layer of a little over three inches of loam was at once placed over the manure; on the other half (No. 2) no loam was used at this time, but the manure on the surface of the bed—about three inches deep—was forked over loosely. Twelve days after having been put in the temperature of the bed No. 2, three inches deep, was 90°, and then it was spawned. On the next day the soil from bed No. 1, spawned four days earlier, was thrown upon bed No. 2, and then part of the soil that was thrown on No. 1 was thrown back again on No. 2, so that now a coating of loam an inch and a half deep covered the whole surface of the bed. When finished the surface was tamped gently with a tamper with a face of pine plank sixteen inches long by twelve inches wide. Mr. Gardner does not believe in the alleged advantages of a hard-packed surface on the mushroom bed, but is inclined to favor a moderately firm one.

He uses the English brick spawn, which is sold by our seedsmen. He has tried making his own spawn, but owing to not having proper means for drying it, he has had rather indifferent success.

Almost all growers insert the pieces of spawn about two to three inches under the surface of the manure, one piece at a time, and at regular intervals of nine inches or thereabouts apart each way—lengthwise and crosswise. But here, again, Mr. Gardner displays his individuality. He breaks up the spawn in the usual way, in pieces one or two inches square. Of course, in breaking it up there is a good deal of fine particles besides the lumps. With an angular-pointed hoe he draws drills eighteen inches apart and two and one-half to three inches deep lengthwise along the bed, and in the rows he sows the spawn, as if he were sowing peach stones, or walnuts, or snap beans, and covers it in as if it were seeds.

Mr. Gardner regards 57° as the most suitable temperature for a mushroom house or cellar, and, if possible, maintains that without the aid of fire-heat. He has hot-water pipes connected with the contiguous greenhouse heating arrangement in his cellar, but he never uses them for heating the mushroom cellar except when obliged to. By mulching his bed with straw he gets along without any fire-heat, but this is very awkward when gathering the mushrooms.

After the bed has borne a little while it is top-dressed all over with a half-inch layer of fine soil. Before using, this soil has been kept in a close place—pit, frame, shed, or large box—in which there was, at the same time, a lot of steaming-hot manure, so that it might become thoroughly charged with mushroom food absorbed from the steam from the fermenting material.

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.