Part 2 (1/2)
_Vermin in Mushroom Beds._
Woodlice are the greatest pests the mushroom-grower has to dispose of, and the most effective way of getting rid of them is by destroying them with boiling water. The surface of the bed being firm and covered with smooth firm soil, the only likely place to afford these creatures the interstices they usually retire into when disturbed, or when not employed in eating the head of every little mushroom that presents itself, is round the edges of the bed, and in the slit which often occurs between the bed and wall or sides of the shelves that support it.
There they are likely to be found in great numbers, and may be destroyed wholesale by pouring boiling water all along the crack. If the beds be covered with hay or litter, it will be necessary to remove this and allow them time to retreat into their hiding places; and if the beds are made in any position that permits of the woodlice hiding in other places than the interstices round them, these places should be sought out, marked, and receive a searching dose of the scalding water all at the same time. It need hardly be added that, as it is not mushrooms, but creatures that rival ourselves in their love of mushrooms, that we wish to annihilate, the scalding water must not in any case be applied to the surface of the bed. If on the surface of old or dry beds, or those from which a good many mushrooms have been cut or pulled, there are any loose hollows or crevices in which the woodlice can take shelter, they should be sought out, cleared of vermin, levelled up, and made firm, so that the enemy cannot take up a position in which we cannot attack him.
Should this plan fail, half an ounce of sugar of lead, mixed with a handful of oatmeal and laid in their tracks, will quickly destroy the pests.
The small mite is most destructive in a high temperature, and in summer, Mr. Cuthill says, ”the maggot” will not breed in a house where the temperature does not exceed sixty degrees, and it is in hot, dry, and half-neglected houses that this pest is usually seen in summer. At that season there is little need to grow mushrooms indoors, and how they may be produced otherwise in great abundance is explained further on. The entrance of rats should also be guarded against.
Mushroom-beds come into bearing about six weeks from the time of sp.a.w.ning, and remain in bearing from two to five months, according to the position in which they are made, and the attention paid to them.
_Treatment of Old Beds._
Upon the continuous bearing qualities of a mushroom bed a word may be said. It may savour of the ridiculous to say that a plant growing upon a dung bed may fail from the want of manure. Yet such is literally and positively the fact. Beds become worn out, the produce small and spindly, and we directly do away with them and make fresh ones. Instead of doing this, give the bed a thorough soaking of stable urine and water, at the temperature of 80 degrees, using the urine in the proportion of one part to five of soft water, and adding a winegla.s.sful of salt to each canful; then coat the bed with fresh sod, cover it down with mats so as to promote the heating, and a second crop as good as the first may be obtained. In this matter I speak from experience, and Mr.
Ingram, at Belvoir, has followed the same plan for many years with the most satisfactory result.
_Gathering the Crop._
Gatherings should frequently take place, especially where the culture is pursued on a large scale. Where there are several beds in bearing, the mushrooms should be gathered every morning. In all cases they should be pulled or twisted out, never cut out, so as to leave decaying stumps in the beds. The holes made by pulling out the mushrooms should be filled with a little fine loam, of which a small heap may be kept in the house for this purpose.
_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 s.h.i.+ft 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 3 ft. long by 1 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 quant.i.ties 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage of the horses.
”When first collected it is piled up in a large heap, in a perfectly dry state, and when wanted for the bed is thrown out, sprinkled with water, and fermented for about a week; while hot, it is taken to the house, and as it is thrown in is mixed with a small quant.i.ty of soil of a loamy character, and a barrow-load of leaf soil. It is then pressed into as compact a ma.s.s as possible by a rammer or mallet, building it up until it forms a bed 10 in. thick in front and 20 in. at the back. After a bed formed of this description of materials has been thus put together, rapid fermentation takes place; and when the most violent fermentative action has pa.s.sed, and a temperature of 80 is found in the bed, sp.a.w.n is put into it by means of a dibber. I employ brick sp.a.w.n obtained from good makers, but, to vary and possibly prolong the period of production, I introduce a certain quant.i.ty of sp.a.w.n saved from old beds. This is longer in its development than the made sp.a.w.n, and appears as a subsidiary crop. After the bed is sp.a.w.ned, a covering of compact loamy soil is spread on the surface, 1 in. to 2 in. in thickness, and well beaten upon it so as to form a smooth and hard crust. A temperature ranging from 50 to 60 should be maintained in the house. A lower temperature abstracts the heat from the bed more rapidly.
”When the mushrooms begin to exhibit weakness, as after the bed has produced a certain quant.i.ty they will do, from the exhaustion of the more stimulating portions of the manure, I find it an excellent practice to administer a sprinkling of water in which a handful of salt has been thrown (that quant.i.ty of salt to a three-gallon can). Saltpetre, though in much smaller quant.i.ties, is equally valuable given in the same way.
The practice I have described relates to the winter cultivation of mushrooms.”
Many instances of perfect success like the preceding could be quoted.
Here is one from Mr. W. P. Ayres:--
”You will be glad to hear that we have on the outskirts of this town (Nottingham) a grower of mushrooms (Mr. Cookson, Mansfield Road) who vies with the French growers, especially if the means of growth be taken into consideration. The place he occupies was formerly the pleasure garden of a large hotel, where the proprietor would occasionally, in the summer season, treat his friends and patrons to an _al fresco_ entertainment. For this purpose a range of summer-houses was built, consisting of brick arches, say 12 feet deep, 6 feet wide, and a little more in height. Close adjoining is a small sandstone-rock cellar, which used to serve for drinkables in the summer and potatoes in the winter.