Mushrooms: How to Grow Them - A Practical Treatise on Mushroom Culture for Profit and Pleasure

William Falconer

Description

Mushrooms and their extensive and profitable culture should concern everyone. For home consumption they are a healthy and delicious food, and for the marketplace, when grown properly, they become a very lucrative crop. Contained herein is a comprehensive handbook on all matter of mushroom culture, written with the layperson in mind. Accessible and informative, this book is the perfect guide for budding amateurs and constitutes a great addition to any mycological collection. Chapters contained within this text include: Those Who Should Grow Mushrooms, Growing Mushrooms in Cellars, Growing Mushrooms in Mushroom Houses, Growing Mushrooms in Sheds, Growing Mushrooms in Greenhouses, et cetera. This scarce text was originally published in 1892 and is proudly republished here complete with a new introduction to the subject.

Sujets

• Grow Your Own
• Fungiculture

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 06 août 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 6
• EAN13: 9781528762458
• Langue: English

Extrait

MUSHROOMS:
How to Grow Them.
A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON
Mushroom Culture for Profit and Pleasure.
BY
WILLIAM FALCONER.
ILLUSTRATED.
1892.
Copyright 2013 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Mushrooms
A mushroom (or toadstool) is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name mushroom is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus ; hence the word mushroom is most often applied to those fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) or pores on the underside of the cap.
The terms mushroom and toadstool go back centuries and were never precisely defined, nor was there consensus on application. The term toadstool was often, but not exclusively, applied to poisonous mushrooms or to those that have the classic umbrella-like cap-and-stem form. Between 1400 and 1600 AD, the terms tadstoles, frogstooles, frogge stoles, tadstooles, tode stoles, toodys hatte, paddockstool, puddockstool, paddocstol, toadstoole, and paddockstooles sometimes were used synonymously with mushrum, muscheron, mousheroms, mussheron, or musserouns . The term mushroom and its variations may have been derived from the French word mousseron in reference to moss ( mousse ).
Identifying mushrooms requires a basic understanding of their macroscopic structure. Most are Basidiomycetes and gilled. Their spores, called basidiospores, are produced on the gills and fall in a fine rain of powder from under the caps as a result. As a result, for most mushrooms, if the cap is cut off and placed gill-side-down overnight, a powdery impression reflecting the shape of the gills (or pores, or spines, etc.) is formed (when the fruit body is sporulating). The colour of the powdery print, called a spore print, is used to help classify mushrooms and can help to identify them. Spore print colours include white (most common), brown, black, purple-brown, pink, yellow, and creamy, but almost never blue, green, or red.
While modern identification of mushrooms is quickly becoming molecular, the standard methods for identification are still used by most and have developed into a fine art, harking back to medieval times and the Victorian era. The presence of juices upon breaking, bruising reactions, odours, tastes, shades of colour, habitat, habit, and season are all considered by both amateur and professional mycologists. Tasting and smelling mushrooms carries its own hazards though, because of poisons and allergens. In general, identification to genus can often be accomplished in the field using a local mushroom guide. Identification to species, however, requires more effort; and one must remember that a mushroom develops from a button stage into a mature structure, and only the latter can provide certain characteristics needed for the identification of the species.
However, over-mature specimens lose features and cease producing spores. Many novices have mistaken humid water marks on paper for white spore prints, or discoloured paper from oozing liquids on lamella edges for coloured spore prints. A number of species of mushrooms are poisonous; although some resemble certain edible species, consuming them could be fatal. Eating mushrooms gathered in the wild is risky and should not be undertaken by individuals not knowledgeable in mushroom identification, unless the individuals limit themselves to a relatively small number of good edible species, that are visually distinctive. People who collect mushrooms for consumption are known as mycophagists , and the act of collecting them for such is known as mushroom hunting, or simply mushrooming . Have fun!
PREFACE
Mushrooms and their extensive and profitable culture should concern every one. For home consumption they are a healthful and grateful food, and for market, when successfully grown, they become a most profitable crop. We can have in America the best market in the world for fresh mushrooms; the demand for them is increasing, and the supply has always been inadequate. The price for them here is more than double that paid in any other country, and we have no fear of foreign competition, for all attempts, so far, to import fresh mushrooms from Europe have been unsuccessful.
In the most prosperous and progressive of all countries, with a population of nearly seventy millions of people alert to every profitable, legitimate business, mushroom-growing, one of the simplest and most remunerative of industries, is almost unknown. The market grower already engaged in growing mushrooms appreciates his situation and zealously guards his methods of cultivation from the public. This only incites interest and inquisitiveness, and the people are becoming alive to the fact that there is money in mushrooms and an earnest demand has been created for information about growing them.
The raising of mushrooms is within the reach of nearly every one. Good materials to work with and careful attention to all practical details should give good returns. The industry is one in which women and children can take part as well as men. It furnishes indoor employment in winter, and there is very little hard labor attached to it, while it can be made subsidiary to almost any other business, and even a recreation as well as a source of profit.
In this book the endeavor has been, even at the risk of repetition, to make the best methods as plain as possible. The facts herein presented are the results of my own practical experience and observation, together with those obtained by extensive reading, travel and correspondence.
To Mr. Charles A. Dana, the proprietor of the Dosoris mushroom cellars and estate, I am greatly indebted for opportunities to prepare this book. For the past eight years everything has been unstintedly placed at my disposal by him to grow mushrooms in every way I wished, and to experiment to my heart s content.
To Mr. William Robinson, editor of The Garden , London, I am especially indebted for many courtesies-permission to quote from The Garden , Parks and Gardens of Paris, and his other works, and to illustrate the chapters in this book on Mushroom-growing in the London market gardens and the Paris caves, with the original beautiful plates from his own books.
The recipes given in the chapter on Cooking Mushrooms, except those prepared for this work by Mrs. Ammersley, although based on the ones given by Mr. Robinson, have been considerably modified by me and repeatedly used in my own family.
My thanks are also due to Mr. John F. Barter, of London, the largest grower of mushrooms in England, for information given me regarding his system of cultivation; to Mr. John G. Gardner, of Jobstown, N. J., one of the most noted growers for market in this country, for facilities allowed me to examine his method of raising mushrooms; and to Messrs. A. H. Withington, Samuel Henshaw, George Grant, John Cullen, and other successful growers for assistance kindly rendered.
WILLIAM FALCONER.
Dosoris, L. I., 1891.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.-Those Who Should Grow Mushrooms , Market Gardeners - Florists - Private Gardeners - Village People and Suburban Residents - Farmers
CHAPTER II.-Growing Mushrooms in Cellars , Underground Cellars - In Dwelling House - Mr. Gardner s Method - Mr. Denton s Method - Mr. Van Siclen s Method - The Dosoris Mushroom Cellar.
CHAPTER III.-Growing Mushrooms in Mushroom Houses , Building the House - Mrs. Osborne s Mushroom House - Interior Arrangement of Mushroom Houses - Mr. Samuel Henshaw s Mushroom House
CHAPTER IV.-Growing mushrooms in Sheds , The Temperature of Interior of the Bed - Shelf Beds - The Use of the Term Shed
CHAPTER V.-Growing Mushrooms in Greenhouses , Cool Greenhouses - On Greenhouse Benches - In Frames in the Greenhouses - Orchard Houses - Under Greenhouse Benches - Among Other Plants on Greenhouse Benches - Growing Mushrooms in Rose Houses - Drip from the Benches - Ammonia Arising
CHAPTER VI.-Growing Mushrooms in the Fields , Mushrooms often appear Spontaneously - Wild Mushrooms - Mr. Henshaw s Plan - Brick Spawn in Pastures
CHAPTER VII.-Manure for Mushroom Beds , Horse Manure - Fresher the Better - Manure of Mules - Cellar Manure - City Stable Manure - Baled Manure - Cow Manure - German Peat Moss Stable Manure for Mushroom Beds - Sawdust Stable Manure for Mushroom Beds - Tree Leaves - Spent Hops
CHAPTER VIII.-Preparation of the Manure , Preparing out of Doors - Warm Sunshine - Fire-fang - Guard Against Over Moistening - The Proper Condition of the Manure - Loam and Manure Mixed
CHAPTER IX.-Making up the Mushroom Beds , The Thickness of the Beds - Shape of the Beds - Bottom-heat Thermometers - The Proper Temperature - Too High Temperature - Keep the House at 55
CHAPTER X.-Mushroom Spawn , What is Mushroom Spawn? - The Mushroom Plant - Spawn Obtained at any Seed Store - Imported from Europe - The Great Mushroom-growing Center of the Country - English Spawn - Mill-track Mushroom Spawn - Flake or French Spawn - Virgin Spawn - How to Keep Spawn - New Versus Old Spawn - How to Distinguish Good from Poor Spawn - American-made Spawn - How to make Brick Spawn - How to make French (flake) Spawn - Making French Virgin Spawn - A Second Method - Third Method - Relative Merits of Flake and Brick Spawn
CHAPTER XI.-Spawning the Beds , Preparing the Spawn - Steeped Spawn - Flake Spawn - Transplanting Working Spawn
CHAPTER XII.-Loam for the Beds , Cavities in the Surface of Beds - The Best Kind of