preparation, it is now cool and
free from steam, and almost odorless; after a few days it will warm up a
little, and may then be spawned and earthed over at once. Do not bury
the spawn in the manure, merely set it in the surface of the manure;
this saves the spawn from being destroyed by too great a heat, should
the bed become unduly warm. This, if the manure has been well prepared,
is not likely to occur. The coating of loam prevents the escape of any
further steam or odor from the manure.

On the 14th of January last, Mr. W. Robinson, editor of the London
_Garden_, in writing to me, mentioned the following very interesting
case of growing mushrooms in the cellar of a dwelling house: "I went out
the other day to see Mr. Horace Cox, the manager of the _Field_
newspaper, who lives at Harrow, near the famous school. His house is
heated by a hot-water system called Keith's, and the boiler is in a
chamber in the house in the basement. The system interested me and I
went down to see the boiler, which is a very simple one worked with coke
refuse. However, I was pleased to see all the floor of the room not
occupied by the boiler covered with little flat mushroom beds and
bearing a very good crop. Truth to tell, I used to fear growing
mushrooms in dwelling houses might be objectionable in various ways; but
this instance is very interesting, as there is not even the slightest
unpleasant smell in the chamber itself. The beds are small, scarcely a
foot high, and perfectly odorless; so that it is quite clear that one
may cultivate mushrooms in one's house, in such a case as this, without
the slightest offence."

=Mr. Gardner's Method.=--Mr. J. G. Gardner, of Jobstown, N. J., uses an
ordinary cellar, such as any farmer in the country has, and the little
that has been done to it to darken the windows and make them tight, so
as to render them better for mushrooms, any farmer with a hand-saw, an
ax, a hammer and a few nails and some boards can do. Mr. Gardner is a
market gardener, and has not the amount of fresh manure upon his own
place that he needs for mushroom-growing, but he buys it, common horse
manure, in New York, and it is shipped to him, over seventy miles, by
rail. And this pays; and if it will pay a man to get manure at such a
cost for mushroom-growing, how much more will mushroom-growing pay the
farmer who has the cellar and the manure as well? Mr. Gardner raises
mushrooms, and lots of them. When I visited him last Novem