MUSHROOMS FROM STRAW.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2160, 27 January 1881, Page 4

MUSHROOMS FROM STRAW.

In “ The Garden ” lately there was an interesting chapter on " Failures of Mushroom Growing,” and which are in a great degree attributed by the writer to the nature of the materials used for the beds and their preparation. Horse droppings only are recommended, and cultivators are advised to collect these with a trowel or by the hand, and use them in a fresh state, turning and fermenting being condemned. No fault can be found with suoh instructions, but it may be mentioned that if suoh as ourselves hod to depend on pure droppings alone collected by the hand or trowel, we should not be able to raise a tenth of the materials needed for a series of bods. In view of the objections raised against using the straw litter along with the droppings, I beg to furnish yon with an account of how we once secured quite an enormous crop of excellent mushrooms here without any droppings at all, or artificial spawn either. A number of years ago I had to fill up some brick potato pits about 4ft deep with fermenting materials in November, and for want anything more procurable at the time I used the etraw litter from the stable yard after it had been shaken quite free of the droppings For our mushroom beds proper. This litter was really clean, onrotted straw, fresh from the stables, but impregnated no doubt with urine, &0., and on the top of it was placed a few inches of fresh leaves, and above that nine inches of soil for the potatoes. The potatoes were planted in January, and no more thought was given to the subject, till one one day, after the potatoes had been watered once or twice in April, sundry unaccountable upheavals among the potatoes attracted attention, and on examining the eruptions they were found to be caused by immense clusters of mushrooms, tho like of which 1 never saw before or sinoe, some of them being about two feet across. Tho whole bed, about forty feet long, was alive with them, and we had pecks more than we could use ourselves. The only fault was that they did not come of the approved “ button size ” which cooks prefer for “dishes” of mushrooms, and our cook wrote down from London to say (hat the mushrooms were grand in quality, but added, “pleaie send the smaller ones as well for dishes,” which wo had been doing, hut they were as large as teacups. Plenty of them were sin. and 6in. across before the gills were more than visible. For quantity of crop and size of the individual stools I never saw inch a crop, and they kept coming up for months. We could not get up the potatoes in the usual way for fear of the mushrooms, but had to rake them out with the fingers. Before that period I had believed in the virtues of pure droppings, and made the most of them, but since then I have used both these and litter as they came to hand, and when ’other matters were right have had just as good crop# a# previously. When splendid crops can be raised from the dry litter alone, and that without artificial spawn, I think there need be little difficulty or fear about getting materials for a bed in most places. According to “ The Parks and Gardens of Paris,” the mushroom growers in the oaves there use the litter as it comes from the stables, long and short together, and it ie collected and transported by train in all weathers, and afterwards carted miles, and then prepared by turning and mixing in the usual way, and the crops are unfailing. Mushroom spawn will “ rnn ” in almost any material, and the sustaining nature of the latter is shown in the quality and duration of the crop. Most cultivators fail through the had quality of the spawn, or an unsuitable or unsteady temperature, which are most important points. It is also needful that the manure should bo rather sweet and dry when spawned, and not wet. Good spawn, placed in a good bed at a temperature of 80 deg. or thereabout, should without fail produce a good crop if the temperature is allowed to decline very slowly and very steadily from that point during the following month. My own conviction is that half or more of the success of the French growers is due to the moderate and steady temperature maintained naturally in the caves. I have heard of famous crops in cool pits when there were horses in the pit, but as a rule coal pits are too deep and too warm for mushroom growing.—“ Garden.”