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.
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 Fi 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 De, spawned De, molded over De, and first mushrooms gathered Fe, 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.
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.