Mushroom Culture: Its Extension and Improvement

Mushroom Culture: Its Extension and Improvement

My reasons for writing this book are: First, that Mushroom Culture is but little practised in this country compared to the extent to which it ought to be, considering the abundance of the necessary materials in all parts of these islands, both in town and country, and the high estimation in which the Mushroom is held. I now refer to ordinary Mushroom Culture as practised in our best private gardens. I believe it possible and desirable to extend this, the only phase of the Culture that can be called popular, in a tenfold degree, and that every place in which a gardener and horses are kept should be abundantly supplied with Mushrooms throughout the greater part of the year. Secondly, that although Mushroom Culture as usually practised is perfectly well known to good cultivators, a simpler and fuller account of it than has yet appeared in any English book on the subject is desirable for the unpractised amateur and cultivator. Thirdly, that Mushroom Culture is at present confined to a too narrow groove; and a belief that the general[vi] gardening public should have a broad and clear idea of the several ways in which they may procure abundance of excellent Mushrooms with very trifling expense. Even many of the best private growers never think of it except as illustrated on their comparatively small beds in small houses. I believe that if the knowledge of how easily and in how many ways they may be grown, apart from the usual mode, were sufficiently spread, it would lead to the production of many times our present supply. Fourthly, a desire to introduce to this and other countries the system of Mushroom Culture on a very large scale carried on in caverns beneath the environs of Paris, which caverns I visited in 1868. To these reasons I might add a wish to call attention to the waste of money for Mushroom-spawn that now occurs in nearly every garden. There is not the slightest necessity for this. In every garden where Mushrooms are grown abundance of spawn may be made. Mr. W. P. Ayres writes lately to tell me that in a great midland garden where the spawn bill used to amount to 18l. or 19l. a year, by saving the spawn as the Parisian growers do, all expense for this article is abolished. I do not attempt to praise or even duly weigh the merits of the Mushroomthat could only be adequately done by the immortal Brillat-Savarin. He, however, seems to have somewhat neglected this most precious of lgumes. None but his serious soul could have approached[vii] the subject with the necessary solemnity. Nobody but he who first saw the deep dangers of hurried, thoughtless, and irreverent feeding, could have done justice to its exquisite flavour when in the best condition, or could have explained how deliciously it combined the virtues of herb and flesh, unspeakably superior to either. Let us, in passing, quote one of his aphorisms, contributed to form the base ternelle la science: La dcouverte dun mets nouveau fait plus pour le bonheur du genre humain que la dcouverte dune toile! ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 40952
Author: Robinson, W. (William)
Release Date: Oct 6, 2012
Format: eBook
Language: English