This is a phase of culture which may be pursued to great advantage in every private garden, almost without cost and attention. The low ridge-like hotbeds, for example, made for both long and short prickly cucumbers, gourds, marrows, &c., are admirably suited for growing a crop of mushrooms under the leaves of the subjects for which they were made. If the spawn be inserted soon after the beds are made, or at any convenient time in early summer, the beds will come into bearing in due course. Perhaps they may do so when mushrooms are found abundantly in the fields; but there are thousands of persons possessing gardens who have no fields in which to cull mushrooms, and who would like to gather them fresh in summer or autumn, if they could not afford to grow them in any covered structure in winter. And this is but one way in which they may be grown with summer garden crops, as will appear from the following communication, by Mr. Ayres, to the Field:—

“The finest crop and the best mushrooms I ever saw were grown in the open ground, and without any protection at all. I will tell you how it happened. Some years back I had the charge of the garden of a noted hunting establishment in Northamptonshire, one of the aids to success being that the manure of an average of nearly fifty highly-fed horses went to the garden, the owner remarking that, whatever other things I might run short of, there would be plenty of ‘muck.’ Well, the best of the hunters during the summer were soiled in loose boxes, principally under cover, and in these boxes the manure was allowed to accumulate until it began to grow too hot for the feet of the horses; then it was indispensable that it should be removed. About midsummer it so happened that nearly three acres of ground had been cleared of the spring crop, spinach, early peas, beans, &c., and I had determined to devote the whole plot to winter brassicas, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, &c. The ground was brashy and very poor, and consequently I determined to clear the boxes and put the whole of the manure upon it. It was carted away so rich in ammonia that the men who loaded it shed tears, not from sentiment, but from compulsion; and when the manure was spread upon the surface it was nothing less than a foot thick—so thick, that the proprietor said it was impossible for it to be dug into the ground. However, clearing a trench at one end of the piece, thirty inches wide and nearly a foot deep, the subsoil was broken up with strong steel forks, and upon that the dung covering the next strip was placed, and covered with the surface soil of the next trench; and so the work proceeded until the manure was put out of sight. I may remark that the dung, especially that around the walls, contained evidence of being strongly impregnated with mushroom spawn, though this was not regarded as being likely to produce a crop of the esculent. A soaking rain falling, the ground was immediately planted with brassicas, which grew as if they could not help growing—and in fact they could not.

“We had not planted for mushrooms, nor were mushrooms expected; but, walking round one morning early in September, a bunch of splendid fellows presented themselves, so large and thick and solid, that when I took them in for breakfast my chef de cuisine and ‘better half’ had grave doubts as to whether they were ‘the real thing.’ However, they were eaten, and the present writing is a proof that they did not poison me. Returning to the plot, I found the bunch gathered was not a solitary one—on the contrary, the ground was literally paved with mushrooms, many of them so large that bushels were gathered for ketchup within a few hours; while the retainers of a large establishment, down to the lowest labourer, were in a fortnight positively sick of them, and cartloads rotted upon the ground.

“The evidence of this unexpected success demonstrated two things—first, that if the ground is freely manured with fresh dung from well-fed horses, mushrooms are almost sure to be produced; and, secondly, that the more the ground is covered with the foliage of plants, the more certain will be the crop. Thus we found more mushrooms under savoys and broccoli than under Brussels sprouts—the former no doubt protecting the crop from heavy drenches of rain, which we know are very injurious to the mushroom crop. Since this example of mushroom-growing turned up, nearly fifteen years ago, I have frequently concentrated the fresh manure under a row of savoys or broccoli, throwing in at the same time a dust of mushroom spawn or the dung of a spent mushroom bed; and, except in very wet seasons, I have rarely failed to have a fine supply during the months of September and October. One point of success I believe to be essentially necessary, and that is, that water shall have a free passage through the ground at all times; hence the necessity of trenching the ground, if you expect mushrooms as well as brassicas.”

Even in gardens where mushrooms are well grown in enclosed structures such results in early autumn will often be desirable; while in numbers of places where there are few or no opportunities of gathering them in abundance under other circumstances, crops in the garden will be very welcome. Therefore utilise the old mushroom-beds!