William Falconer

“ There is no secret whatever connected with it, and skilled labor is unnecessary to make it successful. The commonest farm hand can do the work, which consists of turning the manure once every day or two for about three weeks, then building it into a bed and spawning and molding it. Nearly all the labor for the next ten or twelve weeks consists in maintaining an even temperature and gathering and marketing the crop.
Many women are searching for remunerative and pleasant employment upon the farm, and what can be more interesting, pleasant and profitable work for them than mushroom-growing? ”

“ Horse Manure.—There are various kinds of horse manure, differing materially in their worth for mushroom beds. The kind of manure depends upon the condition of the horses, how they are housed, fed, and bedded, and how the manure is taken care of. But while the manure of all healthy animals is useful for our purpose, there still is a great choice in horse manure. If we are dependent upon our home supply we may use and make the best of what we have, but if we have to buy the manure we should be very particular to select the best kind of manure and accept of no other. ”

“ Market gardeners haul in a load of vegetables to market and bring back a load of manure; others may buy and haul home manure in the same way, or make arrangements with a teamster to do it for them. But the whole matter of city manure is now so deftly handled by agents, who make a special business of it, that we can get any quantity of manure, from a 500 lb bale to an unlimited number of loads, and of most any quality, delivered near or far, inland or coastwise, at a fairly moderate price. It is the city stable manure that nearly all our large market growers use for their mushroom beds. ”

“ Then, without living spawn in the bed how are we to get mushrooms? Some bits of mycelium are still alive and yield the desultory few, but every mushroom that they yield is preying on their vitality, and after a time they too shall die and the bed be completely barren, for the mycelium is altogether dead, and without mycelium mushrooms are an impossibility. We can keep mushroom mycelium in active growth the year round, and year after year, providing we never let it bear mushrooms. ”

“ When hot manure is turned and thrown loosely into a pile it regains its great heat so rapidly that it will need turning again within twenty-four hours, in order to save it from burning, and all practical men know that at every turning ammonia is wasted,—the most potent food of the mushroom. ”

“ In order to make the most of everything, market-gardener-like, he doubles up his crops wherever possible, and for this end he finds no crop more amenable and profitable than mushrooms. It matters nothing to him whether the house is cold or warm, he can grow mushrooms in it anyway, and in order to be master of the situation he makes his mushroom beds in hotbed frames inside the greenhouses. ”

“ In most pretentious gardens there is a regular mushroom house, and the growing of mushrooms is an easy matter; in others there is no such convenience, and the gardener has to trust to his own ingenuity where and how he is to grow the mushrooms. But so long as he has an abundance of fresh manure he can usually find a place in which to make the beds. In the tool-shed, the potting-shed, the wood-shed, the stoke-hole, the fruit-room, the vegetable-cellar, or in some other out-building he can surely find a corner ”

“ True, spurious fungi may appear in the earth on our greenhouse benches or frame beds or mushroom beds at any time and in more or less quantity, but I am convinced that the rich earth of the vegetable garden has no more to do with producing toadstools than has any other good soil, and old manure has far less to do with it than has fresh manure. ”

“ No lady in the land would hesitate to pick the mushrooms in the open fields, how much less, then, should she hesitate to gather the fresh mushrooms from the clean beds in her own clean cellar? Mushrooms are a winter crop; they come when we need them most. The supply of eggs in the winter season is limited enough, and pin-money often proportionately short; but with an insatiable market demand for mushrooms all winter long, at good prices, no farmer's wife need care whether the hens lay eggs at Christmas or not. ”

“ Farmers.—No one can grow mushrooms better or more economically than the farmer. He has already the cellar-room, the fresh manure and the loam at home, and all he needs is some spawn with which to plant the beds. Nothing is lost. The manure, after having been [Pg 14] used in mushroom beds, is not exhausted of its fertility, but, instead, is well rotted and in a better condition to apply to the land than it was before being prepared for the mushroom crop. The farmer will not feel the little labor that it takes. ”

“ If the spawn is perfectly dry and kept in a dry, airy place, and not in large bulk, and covered, it will bear a high temperature with apparent impunity, but whenever dampness, even of the atmosphere, is coupled with heat, the mycelium begins to grow, and this, in the storeroom, is ruinous to the spawn. Judging from our natural mushroom crops, the spawn for which must be alive in the ground in winter, one concludes that frost should not be injurious to the artificial spawn, still my experience is that hard frost destroys the vitality of both brick and flake spawn. ”

“ The spawn is the true mushroom plant and permeates the ground, manure, or other material in which it may be growing; and what we know as mushrooms is the fruit of the mushroom plant. The spawn is represented by a delicate white mold-like network of whitish threads which traverse the soil or manure. Under favorable circumstances it grows and spreads rapidly, and in due time produces fruit, or mushrooms as we call them. The mushrooms bear myriads of spores which are analogous to seeds, and these spores become diffused in the atmosphere and fall upon the ground. ”

“ Flock does not affect all the mushrooms in a bed at any time, and I do not believe it spreads in the bed, or, to use the expression, becomes contagious. If one spot of mildew appears upon a cucumber, rose, or grape vine indoors, and is not checked, it soon becomes general all over the plant or plants, and if one spot of mold occurs in a propagating bed and is not checked at once it soon spreads over a large space and destroys every cutting or seedling within its reach, but this is not the case with flock in a mushroom bed. ”

“ For home use fresh Mushrooms are a delicious, highly nutritious and wholesome delicacy; and for market they are less bulky than eggs, and, when properly handled, no crop is more remunerative. Anyone who has an ordinary house cellar, woodshed, or barn can grow Mushrooms. This is the most practical work on the subject ever written, and the only book on growing Mushrooms ever published in America. The whole subject is treated in detail, minutely and plainly, as only a practical man, actively engaged in Mushroom growing, can handle it. ”

“ One should study the diseases and mishaps of his crop and endeavor to know their cause. If we know the cause of failing health in plants, even in mushrooms, we can probably stop or devise a remedy for the disease or means to prevent its recurrence, and if we can not benefit the present subject we are forewarned against future attacks. But there is a deal of mysterious trouble in this direction in mushroom-growing. ”

“ To correctly judge the quality of brick spawn by its appearance requires experience in handling it, and a trained eye which enables one quickly to detect good from bad, fair to middling. As two lots seldom come exactly or nearly alike in appearance, it is hardly possible to give precise rules to follow, excepting the never-failing requisite which the spawn must possess to be good, namely, the moldy appearance on the surface, the more the better, without showing threads. ”

“ All outside doors should be double and securely packed around in winter. Side window ventilators are not necessary, at the same time they are useful in the early part of the season and in summer time; they should be double and tightly packed in winter. The walls, if made of brick, should be hollow, if of wood, double; indeed, walls built as if for an ice house are the very best for a mushroom house, and should be banked with earth, tree leaves, or strawy manure in winter, to help keep the interior of the house a little warmer. ”

“ M. Lachaume says that good spawn shows "an abundance of bluish-white filaments well fitted together, and giving off a strongly marked odor of mushrooms. All those portions which show traces of white or yellow mold or have a floury appearance, should be rejected and destroyed." Mr. Wright says: "A brick may be a mass of moldiness, and yet be quite worthless; and if the mold has a spotted appearance, as if fine white sand had been dredged on and through the mass, it is certain there is no mushroom-growing power there.... ”

“ Because spawn may be made in America is no reason whatever why the American people will buy it. We must produce, at least, as good an article as the best in Europe before we can find countenance in our home market. It is not the shape of the manure brick, its size, fine finish, hardness, softness, or freshness, that counts in this case; it is the fullness and vitality of the mass of mycelium or mushroom plant that is contained within it. ”

“ The earth is thrown out on the side opposite the wall. Manure which has been prepared for a mushroom bed, and has just come into condition is then filled into the trench, leaving, however, a space at one end of it about two feet and six inches in length for the formation of a mushroom bed, which is made by tossing the manure about and shaking it up with the hands, after which it is pressed down with the hands and knees. As soon as the layer of manure reaches six inches in thickness we place along the edge a number of lumps of spawn at about one foot apart. ”

“ Virgin spawn is what we call natural spawn or wild spawn; that is, the spawn that occurs naturally in the fields, in manure piles, or elsewhere, and without any artificial aid. It is supposed to be produced directly from the mushroom spores, and is not a new growth of surviving parts of old spawn that may have lived over in the ground. It is far more vigorous than "made" spawn, and spawn makers always endeavor to get it to use in spawning the artificial spawn. It is seldom used for spawning mushroom beds because not easy to obtain. Now and again we come upon a lot of it in a manure pile ”

“ It sometimes happens that circumstances may prevent the making up of the beds just as soon as the manure is in prime condition, and even after they are made up the heat does not rise above 75° or 80°. In such a case if the manure is otherwise in good condition and fresh, it is well enough and a good crop may be expected. But if the manure, to begin with, had been a little stale, rotten and inert, I certainly would not hesitate to at once break up the bed, add some fresh horse droppings to it, mix thoroughly, then make it up again. ”

“ Florists need the loam and manure anyway, and these are just as good for potting purposes—better for young stock—after having been used in the mushroom beds than they were before, so that the additional expense in connection with the crop is the labor in making the beds and the price of the spawn. Mushrooms are not a bulky crop; they require no space or care in summer, are easily grown, handled, and marketed, and there is always a demand for them at a good price. If the crop turns out well it is nearly all profit ”

“ The market grower already engaged in growing mushrooms appreciates his situation and zealously guards his methods of cultivation from the public. This only incites interest and inquisitiveness, and the people are becoming alive to the fact that there is money in mushrooms and an earnest demand has been created for information about growing them.
The raising of mushrooms is within the reach of nearly every one. Good materials to work with and careful attention to all practical details should give good returns. The industry is one in which women and children can take part as well as men. ”

“ The floor is of earth, which, when well drained, he thinks preferable to either brick or lumber. The floor is entirely covered with beds, no shelves or walks being used. This makes it necessary to step on the beds, but as no covering is employed it is always easy to avoid stepping on the clusters of young mushrooms, and so long as they are left uninjured the bed is seldom, if ever, impaired by the compacting effect of the treading. In order to maintain a necessary winter temperature of 60° a four-inch hot-water pipe extends the whole length of the house about two feet from the floor. ”

“ By direct inquiry of the leading importers in different cities I find that we import about 4500 lbs of French or flake spawn, and 4000 bushels, or 64,000 lbs of English or brick spawn, and that fully a half of this whole importation is handled by the seedsmen of New York city. In New York one firm alone, who make a specialty of supplying market gardeners, has in one year imported 1500 bushels of brick spawn. But the vicinity of New York is the great mushroom-growing center of the country, also the best market for mushrooms in the country. ”

“ Beds may be made alongside of the walls and, if there is room, also along the middle of the house, and shelves erected in the same way as in the cellar. But in the case of cold, thin outside walls, the shelf-beds should not be built close against them, but instead boxed off about two inches from the walls, so as to remove the beds from the chilling touch of the wall in winter. Economy may suggest the advisability of high mushroom houses, so that one may be able to build one shelf above another, until the shelves are two, three, or four deep. ”