MANURE FOR MUSHROOM BEDS.
In order to grow mushrooms successfully and profitably a supply of fresh
horse manure is needed, and this should be the very best that is made,
either at home or bought from other stables. The questions of manure and
spawn are the most important that we have to deal with. Very few make
their own spawn, as it is bought and accepted upon its good
looks,--often rather deceptive,--but the manure business is entirely in
our own hands, and success with it depends absolutely upon ourselves. We
can not reasonably expect good results from poor manure nor from
ill-prepared manure. It is only from the very best of horse manure
prepared in the very best fashion that we can hope for the very best
crops of the best mushrooms.
=Horse Manure.=--There are various kinds of horse manure, differing
materially in their worth for mushroom beds. The kind of manure depends
upon the condition of the horses, how they are housed, fed, and bedded,
and how the manure is taken care of. But while the manure of all healthy
animals is useful for our purpose, there still is a great choice in
horse manure. If we are dependent upon our home supply we may use and
make the best of what we have, but if we have to buy the manure we
should be very particular to select the best kind of manure and accept
of no other.
The very best manure is that from strong, healthy, hard-worked,
well-kept animals that are liberally fed with hard food, as timothy hay
and grain, and bedded with straw. And if the bedding be pretty well
wetted with urine and trampled under the horses' feet, so much the
better; indeed, this is one reason why manure from farm and teamsters'
stables is better than that from stylish establishments, where
everything is kept so scrupulously dry and clean.
[Illustration: FIG. 19. PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE DOSORIS MUSHROOM
CELLAR.]
The fresher the manure is the better, still manure that is not perfectly
fresh may also be quite good. Stable manure may accumulate in a cellar
for a couple of months, and still be first rate. After our hotbed season
is over I stack our stable manure high in the yard, and from June until
August, as the manure is taken away from the stable each day, it is
piled on the top of this stack. My object is to keep it so dry that it
can neither heat nor rot. In August the stack is broken down and the
best manure shaken out to one side for mushrooms, and the long straw and
rotted parts thrown to the other side. This short manure, when moistened
with water and thrown into a heap, exposed to the sun for a day or two,
will heat up briskly. The beds illustrated in Fig. 19 were made from
manure prepared in this way in August.
In the case of quite fresh manure, let it accumulate for a few days, or
a fortnight, even, until there is enough of it to make up a bed, and
then prepare it. Be very particular to prevent, from the first, its
heating violently or "burning" while accumulating in the pile. Beds made
from very fresh manure respond quickly and generously. The crop comes in
heavily to begin with, and continues bearing largely while it lasts, but
its duration is usually shorter than in the case of a bed made up of
less fresh manure. But altogether it yields a better and heavier crop
than a bed that comes in more gradually and lasts longer, and the
mushrooms are of the finest quality.
Some growers use the droppings only, and reject all of the strawy part,
or as much of it as they can conveniently shake out. This gives them an
excellent manure and perhaps the very best for use on a small scale or
in small beds. When mushrooms are to be grown in boxes, narrow troughs,
half barrels, and other confined quarters, it is well to concentrate the
manure as much as possible--use all the droppings and as little straw as
you can. But droppings alone for large beds would take too much manure
and cost too much, and they would not be any better than with a rougher
manure.
Always preserve the wet, strawy part of the manure, along with the
droppings, and mix and ferment them together, and in this way not only
add largely to the bulk of the pile, but secure the benefits afforded by
the urine without reducing, in any way, the strength or fermenting
properties of the manure. Shake out all the rank, dry, strawy part of
the manure and lay it aside for other purposes. This may be of further
use as bedding in the stables, covering the mushroom beds after they
have been made up, or for hotbeds; if well wetted with stable drainings,
or even plain water, it forms a ready heating material.
Many a time when we have been short of home-made manure I have bought
some loads here and there from different stables in the village, and
mixed all together and made it into beds with excellent results.
Sometimes when the manure under preparation had been rather old and
cool, I have added a fifth or tenth part of fresh droppings to it, with
very quickening effect in heating and apparent benefit to the crop.
It is generally believed that the manure of entire horses is better for
mushrooms than that of other horses, but positive evidence in this
direction has never come under my observation. Some practical men assert
that there is no difference. Mr. John G. Gardner, at the Rancocas Farm,
who has had abundant opportunity to test this matter, tells me that he
has given it a fair trial and been unable to find any difference in the
quality or quantity of mushrooms raised from beds made from the manure
of entire horses and those raised from beds made from the manure of
other equally as well fed animals. But the Parisian growers insist that
there is a difference in favor of entire horses, especially in the case
of hard-worked animals such as are engaged in heavy carting.
Manure of horses that are largely fed with carrots is emphatically
condemned by most writers on the cultivation of mushrooms; indeed, it is
one of _the_ points in every book on mushrooms which I have read. Let us
look at a few practical facts: There are at Dosoris two shelf beds in
one cellar; each is thirty feet long, three feet wide, and nine inches
deep, and both are bearing a very thick crop of mushrooms. The material
in these beds consists of horse manure three parts and chopped sod loam
one part, which had been mixed and fermented together from the first
preparation. The manure was saved from the stables on the place in
November, '88, the materials prepared in December, the beds built Dec.
17, spawned Dec. 24, molded over Dec. 31, and first mushrooms gathered
Feb. 7, 1889. These beds bore well until the middle of April. The
mushrooms did not average as large as they did on the deeper beds upon
the floor of the cellar, but they ran about three-fourths to one ounce
apiece, and a good many were more than this. It is most always the case,
however, that the crop on thin shelf beds averages less than it does on
thick floor beds, and especially is this noticeable after the first
flush of the crop has been gathered, no matter what kind of fermenting
material had been used. At the time when the manure used for these beds
was being saved at the stable the horses were only very lightly worked,
and to each horse was fed, in addition to hay and some oats and bran,
about a third of a bushel of carrots a day. And this is the manure used
for the late mushroom beds, and yet good crops and good mushrooms are
produced. This is not only the experience of one year's practice but the
regular routine of many.
Perhaps some one would like to ask: Do you consider the manure of
carrot-fed horses as good as the manure of animals to which no carrots
or other root crops had been fed? My answer is--decidedly not. While
the manure of carrot-fed animals is not the best, at the same time it is
good, and any one having plenty of it can also have plenty of mushrooms.
The complete denunciation of the manure of carrot-fed horses so
emphatically stereotyped upon the minds and pens of horticultural
writers is not always founded on fact.
=Manure of Mules.=--This is regarded as being next in value to that of
entire horses, and some French growers go so far as to say that it is
quite as good. Mr. John G. Gardner tells me of an extraordinary crop of
mushrooms he once had which astonished that veteran, Samuel Henshaw, and
that it was from beds made of manure from mule stables. Certainly the
heaviest crop of mushrooms I ever did see was at Mr. Wilbur's place at
South Bethlehem, Pa., four years ago, and the beds were of clean mule
droppings from the coal mines. Mule manure can be had in quantity at our
mule stock yards, which are in nearly every large city in the Middle and
Southern States. Getting it from the mines costs more than it is worth,
except as a fancy article; the men will not collect and save it for any
reasonable price.
=Cellar Manure.=--Many stables have cellars under them into which the
manure and urine are dropped at every day's cleaning. These cellars are
not generally cleaned out before a good deal of manure has accumulated
in them, say a few weeks', or a few months', or a winter's gathering,
and it is commonly pretty well moistened by the urine. If this manure
has not become too dry and "fire-fanged" in the cellar it is 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 manure for mushrooms. It is mixed a little and smells
very rank, and in mushroom beds usually produces a good deal of spurious
fungi. Most all of our largest mushroom growers, Van Siclen of Jamaica,
Denton of Woodhaven, Connard of Hoboken, and others, live within easy
hauling distance of the city, and are able to select and get the very
choicest manure at a very cheap rate.
=Baled Manure.=--Within a year or two a good deal of our city horse
manure has been put up in bales and thus shipped and sold. Each bale
contains from 350 to nearly 500 lbs, and is made up, pressed and tied in
about the same way as baled hay. The principal advantages of the bales
are these: Only the cleanest horse manure is put up in this way; cow
manure, offal, spent hops, or other short or soft manures are not
included in the bales, nor, on account of shipping considerations, are
malodorous manures of any sort permitted in them. The railroads allow
baled manure to be put off on their platforms, and closer to their
stations than they would allow loose manure; and it often happens that
an agent will send a carload to a railroad station and dump it off there
so that the people around who have only small garden lots can have an
opportunity of buying one or more bales, just as they need it, and
without, as is generally the case, having to buy a whole load when they
need only half a load. These bales are quite a boon to people who would
like to have a small bed of mushrooms in their cellar and who have no
other manure. Bring home one or more bales, open them, spread out the
manure a little, and when it heats turn it a few times, and it will soon
be ready for use. Or if you do not wish to litter up the place, roll the
bales into the cellar, shed, or wherever else you wish to make use of
them, and mix about one-fourth of their bulk of loam with the manure
and make up the bed at once.
The Board of Health of New York city is very emphatic in its endeavors
to rid the city of any accumulation of manure and, a year ago, had under
consideration a plan to compel the manure agents, for sanitary reasons,
to bale the stable manure. And perhaps this is the reason why it is so
easily procured, to wit: A New York gentleman, desirous of engaging in
the mushroom-growing business, writes me: "I get my manure from the city
in bales. All it costs me is the freight to my place at White Plains."
Lucky gentleman! With any amount of the best kind of stable manure
gratis, no wonder he wishes to embark in the mushroom ship.
=Cow Manure.=--This is sometimes used with horse manure in forming the
materials for a mushroom bed, and several European writers are emphatic
in advocating its use. But I have tried it time and time again, and in
various ways, and am satisfied that it has no advantage whatever over
plain horse manure, if, indeed, it is as good. It is not used by the
market growers in this country.
The best kind of cow manure is said to be the dry chips gathered from
the open pastures; these are brought home, chopped up fine and mixed
with horse manure. The time and expense incurred in collecting and
chopping these "chips" completely overreach any advantages that might be
derived from them, no matter how desirable they may be. The next best
kind of cow manure is that of stall-fed cattle, to which dry food only,
as hay and grain, is fed. This is seldom obtainable except in winter,
and is then available for spring beds only. This I have used freely.
One-third of it to two-thirds of dry horse manure works up very well,
heats moderately, retains its warmth a long time, also its moisture
without any tendency to pastiness; the mycelium travels through it
beautifully, and it bears fine mushrooms. Still, it is no better than
plain horse manure. The poorest kind of cow manure is the fresh manure
of cattle fed with green grass, ensilage, and root crops; indeed, such
manure can not be used alone; it needs to be freely mixed with some
absorbent, as dry loam, German moss, dry horse droppings, and the like,
and even then I have utterly failed to perceive its advantages; it is a
dirty mass to work, and quite cold.
In the manufacture of spawn, however, cow manure is a requisite
ingredient, and here again the manure of dry fed animals is better than
that of those fed with green and other soft food. But my chief objection
to the use of cow manure in the mushroom beds is that it is a favorite
breeding and feeding place for hosts of pernicious bugs and grubs and
earth worms,--creatures that we had better repel from, rather than
encourage in, our mushroom beds.
=German Peat Moss Stable Manure for Mushroom Beds.=--Although I have not
yet had an opportunity of trying this material for mushroom beds, Mr.
Gardner, of Jobstown, has great faith in it; so, too, has that prince of
English mushroom growers, Richard Gilbert, of Burghley, who relates his
success with it in growing mushrooms in the English garden papers. This
peat moss is a comparatively new thing in this country, and is used in
place of straw for bedding horses. It is a great absorbent and soaks up
much of the urine that, were straw used instead, would be likely to pass
off into the drains. To this is ascribed its great virtue in mushroom
culture. It should be mixed with loam when used for mushroom beds.
[Illustration: FIG. 20. BALE OF GERMAN PEAT MOSS.]
=Sawdust Stable Manure for Mushroom Beds.=--This is the manure obtained
from stables where sawdust has been used for bedding for the horses. It
is a good absorbent and retains considerable of the stable wettings.
Such manure ferments well, makes up nicely into beds, the mycelium runs
well in it, and good mushrooms are produced from it. But if I could get
any other fairly good manure I wouldn't use it. I remember seeing it at
Mr. Henshaw's place some years ago. He had bought a quantity of fresh
stable manure from the Brighton coal yards, where sawdust had been used
for bedding for the horses, and this he used for his mushroom beds. I
went back again in a few months to see the bed in bearing, but it was
not a success. At the same time, some European growers record great
success with sawdust stable manure. George Bolas, Hopton, Wirkeworth,
England, sent specimens of mushrooms that he grew on sawdust manure beds
to the editor of the _Garden_, who pronounced them "in every way
excellent." Mr. Bolas says: "In making up the bed I mixed about
one-third of burnt earth with the sawdust, sand, and droppings. The
mushrooms were longer in coming up than usual, the bed being in a close
shed, without any heat whatever. They have, however, far exceeded my
expectations."
Richard Gilbert, of Burghley, also wrote to the _Garden_, April 25,
1885: "There is nothing new in growing mushrooms in sawdust. I have done
it here for years past; that is to say, after it had done service as a
bed for horses, and got intermixed with their droppings. I have never
been able to detect the least difference in size or quality between
mushrooms grown in sawdust and those produced in the ordinary way."
=Tree Leaves.=--Forest tree leaves are often used for mushroom beds,
sometimes alone, instead of manure, but more frequently mixed with horse
manure to increase the bulk of the fermenting material. Oak tree leaves
are the best; quick-rotting leaves, like those of the chestnut, maple,
or linden, are not so good, and those of coniferous trees are of no use
whatever. As the leaves must be in a condition to heat readily they
should be fresh; such are easily secured before winter sets in, but in
spring, after lying out under the winter's snow and rain, their
"vitality" is mostly gone. But we can secure a large lot of dry leaves
in the fall and pile them where they will keep dry until required for
use. As needed we can prepare a part of this pile by wetting the leaves,
taking them under cover to a warm south-facing shed, and otherwise
assisting fermentation just as if we were preparing for a hotbed. While
moistening the leaves with clean water will induce a good fermentation,
wetting them with liquid from the horse-stable urine tanks will cause a
brisk heat, and for mushrooms produce more genial conditions.
Mushroom beds composed in whole or part of fermenting tree leaves should
be much deeper than would be necessary were horse manure alone used; for
half leaves and half manure, say fifteen inches deep; for all leaves,
say twenty to thirty inches deep.
While mushroom spawn will run freely in leaf beds and we can get good
mushrooms from them, my experience has satisfied me that we do not get
as fine crops from these beds or any modification of them as from the
ordinary stable manure beds. And we can not wonder much at this,
considering that the wild mushroom is scarcely ever found in the
neighborhood of trees or where leaf mold deposits occur.
=Spent Hops.=--We can make good use of this in one way. If we are short
of good materials for a mushroom bed, we can first make up the beds
eight or ten inches deep with fermenting spent hops, and above this lay
a four or five inch layer of horse manure, or this and loam mixed. The
hops will keep up the warmth, and the manure affords a congenial home
for the mushroom spawn. But we should never use spent hops alone, nor
so near the surface of the beds that the spawn will have to travel
through it.
Spent hops can be had for nothing, and our city brewers even pay a
premium to the manure agents to take the hops away.