Mushroom; A Practical Treatise on Mushroom Culture for Profit and Pleasure (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ... tion of the spawn and how well it has run in the manure. Before being earthed over the outside surface of the beds should be covered with white filaments radiating in all directions which give to the beds a bluish appearance. When the bed is in the proper state for being covered with earth the mold is laid on equally and firmly over the surface about three-fourths of an inch deep. It is then thoroughly watered through a fine-rosed watering pot and allowed to settle until the next day, when it is beaten solid by the back of a wooden shovel. The bed now needs no further care until the young mushrooms appear, except a light occasional watering should it get dry. In spacious, high-roofed caves the mean temperature is about 52 F., while in narrow, low-roofed ones it is Fig. 28. Is The Mushroom Caves Of Paris. about 68 . Of course this makes a wide difference in the time of bearing and duration of the beds made in the different caves; those in the warm caves come into bearing sooner and stop bearing quicker than do those in the high-roofed caves. On an average the first mush rooms appear in about forty das after the beds are .spawned, and the beds continue bearing for forty or sixty days, but toward the end of that time the yield diminishes very rapidly. They are gathered once a day. usually about midnight, so that they may reacn the Paris market early in the morning. In size the mushrooms range from threefourths to one and five-eighths inches in diameter of top, and are pure white in color. The workmen always gather the mushrooms by plucking them out by the roots, and never by cuttiug them; the gatherers have two baskets, carried knapsack fa.liion on their back; one is to receive the mushrooms as they are picked, the other contains...