Mushrooms: how to grow them

and fall months mushrooms often appear spontaneously and in great quantity in our open pastures, but in their natural condition they are an uncertain crop, as in one year they may oc

wn in the ground. This may be true to a certain extent, but how does it happen-as it certainly often does-that good spawn planted by hand in the fields in early summer will produce mushroo

places, or the neighborhood of trees and bushes. In attempting to cultivate them in the open fields we should endeav

under it, so that it shall be about two inches below the surface, then tamp the sod down. By cutting and raising the sod in this way, without breaking it off, it is not as likely to die of drought in summer. In this wa

, and if there should be any live spawn in the bottom of our beds we put it in a wheelbarrow and take it to the field, where we plant it in the open places, but never under trees. In planting, we lift a sod and put a shovelful of the manure containing the spawn in the hole, then replace the sod and beat it down firm; this we do at distances of twe

o the meadow, where holes dug here and there about one foot or eighteen inches square are filled with them, the soil removed being scattered over the surrounding grass. When all the holes have been filled and made solid he then places two or three pieces of spawn about one inch square in each hole, treads all down firmly, replaces the turf and beats it tig