Mushrooms: how to grow them by William Falconer (early reader chapter books txt) 📕

Slugs.—These are serious pests in the mushroom house, especially in above-ground structures, and they also occur in annoying numbers in cellars. Wherever hay or straw is used in covering the beds, or there is much woodwork about the house, slugs appear to be most numerous. They are very fond of mushrooms and attack them in all stages, from the tiny button just emerging from the ground to the fully developed plant. In the case of the buttons or small mushrooms they usually eat out a piece on the top or side of the cap, and as the mushroom advances in growth these wounds spread open and display an ugly scar or disfigurement. They also bite into the stems. But in the case of fresh, full grown mushrooms they seem to have a particular liking for the gills, and eat patches out of them here and there.

"Bullet" or "Shot" Holes.—My attention was first called to these by Mr. A. H. Withington, of New Jersey. They are little holes cut clear through the mushroom caps, as if perforated by a buckshot, and are evidently the work of some insect. He had, before then, submitted some of these perforated mushrooms to Prof. S. Lockwood, who sent them to Prof. C. V. Riley for his opinion. Prof. Riley replied that: "It is quite likely that the damage was done by some myriapod, possibly a Julus, or some of its allies. Only observation on the spot will determine this point." As I never had any trouble with myriapods attacking mushrooms and had seen nothing of this "bullet hole" work in our own beds I was much interested in the question and determined to look out for it, so I marked off a part of a bed and left that uncared for. I soon found out the trouble. These holes are the work of slugs which I have found and watched in the act of eating out the holes. To find the slugs at work, one has to take his lantern and go out and look for them at night. And to find out about plant parasites—be they fungus, or insect—one has to let them alone and watch them. Had we kept up our unsparing hunt for slugs, probably we should not yet have known what caused these "bullet holes," for no slug would have been left alive long enough to eat a hole through a mushroom cap.

Slugs must be caught and killed. We can find them at night by hunting for them by lamp-light; their slimy track glistens and reveals their presence. A few small bits of slate or half rotten boards with a pinch of bran on them laid here and there about the beds are handy traps; the slugs gather to eat the bran, hide beneath the rotten wood, and can then be caught and killed. Fresh lettuce leaves make a capital trap, but lettuces in January or February are about as scarce as mushrooms themselves. A dressing of salt is distasteful to slugs, and not injurious to mushrooms. Strong, fresh lime water may be freely sprinkled over woodwork, pathways, walls, or elsewhere where slugs might gather and hide themselves; but this solution should not be used upon the mushroom beds. Rigid cleanliness, however, about the mushroom house, and an ever-alert eye for slugs, should keep them under.

Wood Lice.—These are sure to be more or less abundant in every mushroom house, even in the cellars. They crawl in through doors, ventilators, or other interstices, and are brought in with the manure, and find shelter about the woodwork, manure, or any bits of dry litter that may be around. They attack the pinhead and small button mushrooms by biting out little patches in their tops and sides; and although these patches are small to begin with, the blemish spreads as the mushroom grows, and is an objectionable feature. Trapping and killing the insects is the chief remedy. Put part of a half boiled potato (for which no salt had been used) into a little pasteboard box, and cover the potato with some very dry swamp moss, lay the box on its side, and open at the end on the bed. The wood lice will gather to eat the potato, and remain after feasting because the dry moss affords them a cozy hiding place. Several of these little boxes can be used. Go through the house in the morning, lift the little traps quickly, and shake out any wood lice that may be in them into a tin pail (an old lard pail will do), which should contain a little water and kerosene. These traps may be used for any length of time, merely observing to change the potato now and again to have it in appetizing condition. Hot water or strong kerosene emulsion may be poured about the woodwork, walls, and pathways, to destroy the wood lice, but should not be allowed to touch the beds. Poisoned sweet apples, potatoes, and parsnips have been recommended as baits for these pests, but I must discourage using poisons of any sort in the mushroom house. Six or eight inch square pieces of half rotten very dry boards laid in pairs, one above the other, also make capital traps; the wood lice gather there to hide themselves; these traps should be examined frequently and the insects shaken into the pail containing water and kerosene.

Mites.—Two kinds of mites are very common about mushrooms in spring and summer; one is whitish and smaller than a "red spider" (one of the commonest insect pests among garden plants), and the other is yellowish and as large as or larger than a "red spider." But I do not think that either of these mites is worth considering as a mushroom pest. The yellow mite (probably Lyroglyphus infestans) is extremely common in strawy litter on the surface of hotbeds, and I have no doubt finds its way into the mushroom house as manure vermin rather than a mushroom parasite. They are the effect and not the cause of injury to the crop. When mushrooms are wounded or cracked, particularly about the stem, the crevices often become abundantly inhabited with these mites, but they do no material damage.

Mice and Rats.—These rodents are very fond of mushrooms, and where they have access to the beds are troublesome and destructive. Both the common house mouse and the white-bellied fence mouse are mushroom destroyers, but, so far, the nimble but timid field mouse (among garden, open air, and frame crops generally) has never yet troubled our mushrooms, but I can not believe that this immunity is voluntary on its part. The mice bite a little piece here and there out of the caps of the young mushrooms, and these bite-marks, as the mushrooms advance in growth, spread open and become unsightly disfigurements. In the case of open mushrooms, however, the mice, like slugs, prefer the gills to the fleshy caps. Rats are far more destructive than mice. Trapping is the only remedy I use, and would not use poison in the mushroom houses for these creatures for obvious reasons. But we should make our houses secure against their inroads.

Toads.—These are recommended as good insect traps to be used in mushroom houses, but I do not want them there; the cure is as bad as the disease. The mushroom bed is a little paradise for the toad. He gets upon it and burrows or elbows out a snug little hole for himself wherever he wishes, and many of them, too, and cares nothing about whether, in his efforts to make himself comfortable, he has heaved out the finest clumps of young mushrooms in the beds.

Fogging Off.—This is one of the commonest ailments peculiar to cultivated mushrooms. It consists in the softening, shriveling, and perishing of part of the young mushrooms, which also usually assume a brownish color. These withered mushrooms do not occur singly here and there over the face of the bed, but in patches; generally all or nearly all of the very small mushrooms in a clump will turn brown and soft, and there is no help for them; they never will recover their plumpness. Some writers attribute fogging off to unfavorable atmospheric conditions,—the temperature may be too cold, or too hot, or the atmosphere too moist, or too dry. I am convinced that fogging off is due to the destruction of the mycelium threads that supported these mushrooms; it is a disease of the "root," to use this expression; the "roots" having been killed, the tops must necessarily perish. If it were caused by unfavorable conditions above ground we should expect all of the crop to be more or less injuriously affected; but this does not occur; the mushrooms in one clump may be withered, and contiguous clumps perfectly healthy.

Anything that will kill the spawn or mycelium threads will cause fogging off to overtake every little mushroom that had been attached to these mycelium threads. Keeping the bed or part of it continuously wet or dry will cause fogging off, so will drip; watering with very cold water is also said to cause it, but this I have not found to be the case. Unfastening the ground by abruptly pulling up the large mushrooms will destroy many of the small mushrooms and pinheads attached to the same clump; and when large mushrooms push up through the soil and displace some of the earth, all the small mushrooms so displaced will probably waste away, as the threads of mycelium to which they were attached for support have been severed. A common reason of fogging off is caused by cutting off the mushrooms in gathering them and leaving the stumps in the ground; in a few days' time these stumps develop a white fluff or flecky substance, which seems to poison every thread of mycelium leading to it, and all the mushrooms, present and to come, that are attached to this arrested web of mycelium are affected by the poison of the decaying old mushroom stump, and fogg off. Any impure matter in the bed with which the mycelium comes in contact will destroy the spawn and fogg off the young mushrooms. Lachaume complains about the larvæ of two beetles, namely Aphodius fimetarius and Dermestes tessellatus, which "cause great damage by eating the spawn, thereby breaking up the reproductive filaments." Damage of this sort by these or any other insect vermin will cause fogging off. But I have not noticed either of the above beetles or their larvæ about our beds.

Flock.—This is the worst of all mushroom diseases and common wherever mushrooms are grown artificially. It is not a new disease; I have known it for twenty-five years, and it was as common then as it is now, and practical gardeners have always called it Flock. I say "worst of all diseases" because I know that mushrooms affected by it are both unwholesome and indigestible, and I can readily believe that in aggravated cases they are poisonous. It is caused by other fungi which infest the gills and frills of the mushrooms, and render them a hard, flocky mass; sometimes the affected mushrooms preserve their white skin, color, and normal form, at other times the cap becomes more or less distorted. The illustration, Fig. 26, is from life, and a good average of a flock-infested mushroom. In gathering mushrooms the growers should insist that every flock-infested mushroom be discarded, and consumers of mushrooms should familiarize themselves with this disease so as to know and reject every mushroom showing a trace of