o
have it in appetizing condition. Hot water or strong kerosene emulsion
may be poured about the woodwork, walls, and pathways, to destroy the
wood lice, but should not be allowed to touch the beds. Poisoned sweet
apples, potatoes, and parsnips have been recommended as baits for these
pests, but I must discourage using poisons of any sort in the mushroom
house. Six or eight inch square pieces of half rotten very dry boards
laid in pairs, one above the other, also make capital traps; the wood
lice gather there to hide themselves; these traps should be examined
frequently and the insects shaken into the pail containing water and
kerosene.

=Mites.=--Two kinds of mites are very common about mushrooms in spring
and summer; one is whitish and smaller than a "red spider" (one of the
commonest insect pests among garden plants), and the other is yellowish
and as large as or larger than a "red spider." But I do not think that
either of these mites is worth considering as a mushroom pest. The
yellow mite (probably _Lyroglyphus infestans_) is extremely common in
strawy litter on the surface of hotbeds, and I have no doubt finds its
way into the mushroom house as manure vermin rather than a mushroom
parasite. They are the effect and not the cause of injury to the crop.
When mushrooms are wounded or cracked, particularly about the stem, the
crevices often become abundantly inhabited with these mites, but they do
no material damage.

=Mice and Rats.=--These rodents are very fond of mushrooms, and where
they have access to the beds are troublesome and destructive. Both the
common house mouse and the white-bellied fence mouse are mushroom
destroyers, but, so far, the nimble but timid field mouse (among garden,
open air, and frame crops generally) has never yet troubled our
mushrooms, but I can not believe that this immunity is voluntary on its
part. The mice bite a little piece here and there out of the caps of the
young mushrooms, and these bite-marks, as the mushrooms advance in
growth, spread open and become unsightly disfigurements. In the case of
open mushrooms, however, the mice, like slugs, prefer the gills to the
fleshy caps. Rats are far more destructive than mice. Trapping is the
only remedy I use, and would not use poison in the mushroom houses for
these creatures for obvious reasons. But we should make our houses
secure against their inroads.

=Toads.=--These are recommended as good insect traps to be used in
mushroom h