any 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