splendid
for mushrooms. We buy a good deal of it, but are particular to reject
the very dry and white-burned parts. Sometimes the manure from the
cow-stables, as well as from the horse-stables, is dropped together into
the cellar; then I would give less for the manure, especially if the cow
manure predominated, because in the working it keeps too cold and wet
and pasty; but if there is not cow manure enough to give the mass a
pasty character it will make capital mushroom beds. Pigs often have the
run of the manure-cellar, as is generally the case in farmyards. I would
not use any part of this mixed pig manure. Mycelium evades hog manure;
besides it is impure and malodorous, and a propagating bed for noxious
insect vermin. It matters very little what kind of bedding is used, in
the case of cellar manure, but I would not buy it if sawdust or salt hay
had been used as bedding. Neither of these materials, in limited
quantity, is deleterious to the mushrooms; at the same time, they are
far less desirable than straw, field hay, German peat moss, or corn
stalks, and there are risks enough in mushroom-growing without courting
any that we can as well avoid.

=City Stable Manure.=--Around New York this can always be had in any
quantity at a reasonable rate, and it is first-rate manure for mushroom
beds. 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. When they get it at the stables and cart it
home themselves they know what they are handling, and should take only
fresh horse dung. In ordering it of an agent be particular to arrange
for the freshest and cleanest, pure horse manure. They will get it for
you. We get several hundreds of loads of this selected manure from them
every year for hotbeds, and find it excellent. We also get 1000 to 2000
loads of the common New York stable manure a year for our general
outdoor crops, and it also is capital manure in its way, but not so good
as the selected