ind out about plant parasites--be they
fungus, or insect--one has to let them alone and watch them. Had we kept
up our unsparing hunt for slugs, probably we should not yet have known
what caused these "bullet holes," for no slug would have been left alive
long enough to eat a hole through a mushroom cap.

Slugs must be caught and killed. We can find them at night by hunting
for them by lamp-light; their slimy track glistens and reveals their
presence. A few small bits of slate or half rotten boards with a pinch
of bran on them laid here and there about the beds are handy traps; the
slugs gather to eat the bran, hide beneath the rotten wood, and can then
be caught and killed. Fresh lettuce leaves make a capital trap, but
lettuces in January or February are about as scarce as mushrooms
themselves. A dressing of salt is distasteful to slugs, and not
injurious to mushrooms. Strong, fresh lime water may be freely sprinkled
over woodwork, pathways, walls, or elsewhere where slugs might gather
and hide themselves; but this solution should not be used upon the
mushroom beds. Rigid cleanliness, however, about the mushroom house, and
an ever-alert eye for slugs, should keep them under.

=Wood Lice.=--These are sure to be more or less abundant in every
mushroom house, even in the cellars. They crawl in through doors,
ventilators, or other interstices, and are brought in with the manure,
and find shelter about the woodwork, manure, or any bits of dry litter
that may be around. They attack the pinhead and small button mushrooms
by biting out little patches in their tops and sides; and although these
patches are small to begin with, the blemish spreads as the mushroom
grows, and is an objectionable feature. Trapping and killing the insects
is the chief remedy. Put part of a half boiled potato (for which no salt
had been used) into a little pasteboard box, and cover the potato with
some very dry swamp moss, lay the box on its side, and open at the end
on the bed. The wood lice will gather to eat the potato, and remain
after feasting because the dry moss affords them a cozy hiding place.
Several of these little boxes can be used. Go through the house in the
morning, lift the little traps quickly, and shake out any wood lice that
may be in them into a tin pail (an old lard pail will do), which should
contain a little water and kerosene. These traps may be used for any
length of time, merely observing to change the potato now and again t