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if you force it to produce that weight in two months you are a gainer, as you thereby save in labor; but when that producing-power is exhausted it will produce no more mushrooms."

A spent mushroom bed is one that has been kept in bearing condition under the most favorable circumstances at our command, and it has borne a good crop, lasted some two months in bearing, and now it has stopped bearing (except in a meagerly, desultory way) because the spawn or mycelium has exhausted itself and is dead. Then, without living spawn in the bed how are we to get mushrooms? Some bits of mycelium are still alive and yield the desultory few, but every mushroom that they yield is preying on their vitality, and after a time they too shall die and the bed be completely barren, for the mycelium is altogether dead, and without mycelium mushrooms are an impossibility. We can keep mushroom mycelium in active growth the year round, and year after year, providing we never let it bear mushrooms. This is done by taking the mycelium, just before it begins bearing, from one manure bed and plant it in another, and so on from bed to bed. At every fresh transplanting the mycelium exerts itself into renewed growth, for it must become a strong plant before it has strength enough to produce and support a mushroom. Our utmost efforts have never rendered mycelium in a mushroom-bearing condition perennial.

CHAPTER XIX.

INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES.

The mushroom grower has his full share of insects to contend with, and in order to overcome them one should acquaint himself with them, and know what they are, what they do, whence they came, and how to destroy them. One should study the diseases and mishaps of his crop and endeavor to know their cause. If we know the cause of failing health in plants, even in mushrooms, we can probably stop or devise a remedy for the disease or means to prevent its recurrence, and if we can not benefit the present subject we are forewarned against future attacks. But there is a deal of mysterious trouble in this direction in mushroom-growing. We are likely to know something about the depredations committed by insects or parasitic molds above ground, but I am sure there is a good deal of mischief going on under ground of which we know very little, if anything. The ills to which the mycelium is subject are not at all fully understood.

"Maggots."—This is the common name among practical mushroom growers for the larvæ of a species of fly (Diptera) which from April on through the warm summer months renders mushroom-growing unprofitable. It is unavoidable, and so far has proved invincible. It attacks the mushrooms in deep cellars, above-ground houses, greenhouses, or frames, and is often quite common in early appearing crops in the open fields. We sometimes read that it does not occur in unheated cellars, but this is a mistake, for in our unheated tunnel cellars, where the temperature in April does not exceed 55°, maggots always appear about the end of this month. But it is true that in the case of cool houses and where the beds are covered over with hay or straw maggots do not appear as early in the season as they do in warm houses and open beds. While rigid cleanliness, and care in keeping the house or cellar closed, no doubt have much to do in lessening the trouble, I have never been able to overcome it, and know of no one who has. We simply stop growing mushrooms in summer.

The maggots or larvæ are about three-sixteenths to four-sixteenths of an inch long, white with black head, and appear in all parts of the mushroom, but mostly in the cap and at the base of the stem, and perforate hither and thither leaving behind them a disgusting network of burrows. The tiny buttons, about as soon as they appear at the surface of the ground, are infested, but this does not check their growth, and when they become mushrooms large enough for gathering, unless it be for a dark looking puncture or tracing now and then visible on the outside of the caps and stems, there are but few signs to indicate to the inexperienced eye the presence of maggots. And this is why maggoty mushrooms are so often found exposed for sale in summer. But in large or full-grown mushrooms, and especially the white-skinned varieties, their presence is visible enough. Although very repugnant, however, and utterly unfit for food, maggoty mushrooms are not poisonous.

But all the mushrooms of summer crops are not maggoty, only a large proportion of them; the evil begins in April, and increases as the summer advances, until August, when it decreases, and in October completely stops—at least this is my experience.

A solution of salt, saltpeter, or ammonia sprinkled over the surface of the beds does not, in this case, do any good as an insecticide, pyrethrum powder diffused through the atmosphere, and tobacco smoke, have been ineffectual. Burning a lamp set in a basin of water with a little kerosene floating on the surface is a most doubtful operation. Multitudes of flies are destroyed by this lamp trap, but they are the poor little innocent "manure flies," and the atmosphere of the house is vitiated and rendered unhealthy for the crop. I have tried these lamp traps season after season, and never knew of their doing any good; that is, the maggots seemed just as numerous in the lamp-trapped cellar as in the other cellar in which no lamp trap had been used.

Regarding this "maggots" question, Mr. J. F. Barter, of London, writes me: "During the summer months the outdoor mushrooms get maggoty before they are big enough to gather, but of course they can be grown in cool cellars all the year round.... I know of no sure cure for them (the maggots); of course a slight sprinkling of salt with manure or mold does prevent, to a certain extent, but it must be used very carefully." Now my experience is, as I have already said, that it is impossible to grow mushrooms here in summer, even in cool cellars, without having them more or less maggoty. As regards the salt and loam preventive, I have tried it lightly and heavily, but without any apparent good effect.

Black Spot.—All mushroom growers are familiar with this disease, but unless it appears in pronounced form very little notice is taken of it, even by market men, for we see spotted mushrooms continually exposed for sale. It appears as dark brown spots, streaks, or freckles, on the top of the mushroom caps, and increases in distinctness and breadth with age. Fig. 25. It is caused by eel worms (Anguillulæ). These minute creatures enter the mushrooms when the latter are in their tiniest pin form and before they emerge from the ground. If a button arises clean it remains clean, if diseased it continues to be diseased, and it is a fact that if one mushroom in a clump has black spot we usually find that every mushroom in the clump has it. But mushrooms growing from the same bit of spawn and that come up an inch or two away from the spotted ones may be perfectly clean. Black spot has never occurred with me in new beds, and seldom in those in vigorous bearing, but it generally appears in beds that have been in bearing condition for some weeks or are declining. It does not confine itself to any particular spot or part of the bed, and sometimes it is much more plentiful than at others. Between October and March we have very little black spot, but as the spring opens this disease increases. During the winter season, with careful attention, perhaps not so much as one per cent will show black spot, but as the warm weather sets in the per centage increases until in May, when as many as twenty per cent may be affected by it.

Fig. 25. Mushroom affected with Black Spot.

Black spot is a disease, however, that can be controlled. Keep everything in and about the mushroom houses rigidly clean, and as soon as a bed has ceased to bear a crop worth picking clear it out, lime-wash the place it occupied, and make up another bed. Carefully observe that no old loam or manure is allowed to accumulate anywhere, or green scum forms upon the boards, paths, or walls; boiling water impregnated with alum poured over the boards, walls, and other scum-covered surfaces, will kill the eel worms, but it should not be allowed to touch the mushroom beds that are in bearing or coming into bearing. Much can be done to protect the bearing beds from the ravages of this pest: In gathering the mushrooms remove every vestige of old stump and fogged-off mushrooms, keep the holes filled up with fresh loam, and when the bed has been in bearing condition for a fortnight sprinkle it over with a solution of salt, and next day topdress with a half-inch coating of finely sifted fresh loam; firm it to the bed with the back of the hand, for it can not be pressed on with a spade on account of the growing mushrooms.

Is black spot unwholesome? I do not think so. I have never known any ill effects from eating it. The spotted parts are merely flavorless and tasteless. But it is a very disgusting disease, and no one, I am sure, would care to eat eel worms with their mushrooms. Until quite recently I used to regard the black spot as the mark of some parasitic fungus, and, acting under this impression, sent affected mushrooms to Dr. W. G. Farlow, Prof. of Cryptogamic Botany at Harvard University, for his opinion. He wrote me: "I find that the trouble is due to Anguillulæ, and I find an abundance of these animals in the brown spots." He advised me to submit them to an expert in "worms." I then sent samples to my kind friend, Mr. William Saunders, of Washington, D. C., who submitted them, for me, to Dr. Thomas Taylor, the microscopist to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and who replied: "I recommend that you use a sprinkling of scalding water thoroughly over the entire surface of the bed, especially the portion next to the boxing. The scalding water should be applied before the buttons appear, but not penetrate more than one-eighth of an inch below the surface. Anguillulæ abound wherever decaying vegetable matter exists.... The green algæ on the outside of flower pots abounds in the anguillulæ."

Manure Flies.—This is the name we give to the little flies (a species of Sciara) that appear in large numbers in spring and summer in our mushroom houses, or, indeed, in hotbeds or structures of any sort where manure is used, as well as about the manure heaps in the yard. On account of their habits they are regarded with much ill-favor. They hop about the house and are continually running over the mushrooms, beds, and walls, in the most suspicious manner. But, notwithstanding this, I am inclined to regard them as perfectly harmless so far as injuring the mushroom crop is concerned, except the fact that they soil the mushrooms somewhat by their traveling over them with their muddy feet.

In attempting to get rid of the maggot fly I have destroyed large numbers of these little innocents, but without any apparent diminution in their numbers. Lachaume recommends: "These flies may be destroyed by placing about a number of pans filled with water to which a few drops of oil of turpentine have been added. The flies are attracted by the odor and drown themselves. They may also be

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