Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women - Wise Acres Yearbook (Ambler, PA)

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day we went home for Thanksgiving vacation, that the manure was finally sufficiently short and sweet to be packed in the permanent mushroom bed under the carnation bench. Contrast may enhance or it may detract; contrasted with the two original stacks of mushroom manure, the one remaining pile was indeed sweet, but, even so, it was not a bed of roses! Alas! I had put on my best shoes that morning preparatory to leaving for home, and I had no overshoes. One of the Seniors once remarked at the beginning of a certain unpleasant occurrence, “It will pass.” This disagreeable task likewise passed, amid much backache, and finally the manure was firmly packed under the bench and there was left to settle until our return. On December 3d the temperature of the bed had descended to 80 degrees Fahrenheit and the time had come to insert the spawn. We marked off the distances ten inches by ten inches in the bed. We had taken precautions to buy spawn from a reliable firm. This was soaked in tepid water, being broken into pieces the size of a turkey’s egg, and then inserted into the bed to the depth of an inch. The entire bed was then covered with straw. “In eight days,” my lecture notes state, “growth will have started.and at the end of two months the mushrooms may be gath- ered, and the crop continues for three months.” On the eighth day after the spawn was inserted, a group of curious students gathered around the mushroom bed to see what this mycelium looked like. But horrors ! the maggot of the common house fly, those destructive little maggots that cause the failure of one’s entire mushroom crop, had beaten us to it.” “The spawn was infested,” said one student. Maybe they were in the manure.” said another. But whatever their origin they were eating our embryo mushrooms with gusto and seemed determined to stay. My heart sank as visions of beefsteak heaped high with mushrooms faded away. However, we gave the culture the benefit of the doubt, and, proceeding according to instructions, covered the entire bed with finely sifted soil to the depth of an inch to an inch and a half, and replaced the straw. Since then our mushroom bed like the family skeleton has remained hidden under its cover of straw. Two months have come and gone but no mushroom has poked its little round, bald head above the ground. But a report has recently circulated that with the aid of a magnifying glass the mycelium threads have actually been seen. Hurrah ! for beefsteak and mushrooms—maybe. Adeline Greathead When I vast riches would acquire 1 get some paper and some pens, Sit down before the kitchen fire And spend the evening keeping hens. Next evening 1 would richer grow And soon annex the sum to suit, I get a catalogue or so. And spend the evening raising fruit. —Exchange. 7

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(jHueljnuuns—iftagbc How often my eye, as it has followed the lines of an uninteresting magazine article, has strayed aside into the advertisement columns and read Grow Mushrooms Grow Rich No Trouble—Little Expense! Then I have leaned back in my chair and presto—I have glided through the Alleg-hanies in my luxuriant touring car, destined for Coronada Beach; or billowed around Hatteras in my yacht bound for Palm Beach. With such daydreams drifting in my subconscious mind, I heard with delight one day in early November that we were really foing to grow mushrooms here at school. Yevious to that time we had been advised by our instructor as to the nature, habits, and requirements of the mushroom. We had learned that the mushroom is a fungus, the vegetative part of which is a mass of hyphal threads called mycelium; and that the edible portion includes the spore bearing gills. We had learned of the propagation by means of “mushroom spawn,” that this spawn was specially and carefully prepared by certain seed firms and that the quality of the spawn determined to a large extent the success or failure of one’s mushroom crop. We had been warned that the mushroom was extremely particular about its food, having a decided preference for short, sweet manure from stables where horses were fed on hard grain. We had learned also that the mushroom spawn after being soaked in tepid water liked to be put into a pleasantly warm bed of 80 degrees Fahrenheit in a dark room having a rather even temperature, between 55 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit; that it was fond of an occasional drink of tepid water and was particularly pleased with a slight stimulant concocted of one ounce of Hartshorn Salts and five gallons of water. it was on November 9th that we adventured into the field of Mushroom Culture. Hopefully we adventured, but dubiously, for had we not been instructed that the mushroom desired a dark room with a temperature between 55 and 60 degrees, and did not the carnations growing in that; raised bed under which the mushrooms were to be grown, yearn for sunshine and like 50 degrees Fahrenheit or even less? When we arrived at the greenhouse that morning of November 9th, we were told that the manure had come, and that we were to heap it out of doors in piles four ifeet by five feet and three feet in height. We used our spading forks, making the boundaries of the first layer, then filling in towards the centre and tramping each layer firmly, and proceeding in like manner with each succeeding layer. A little powdered gypsum sprinkled between these layers of manure would have lessened appreciably the escape of nitrogen, but we took all available precautions against the excessive leaching of this plant food by covering the piles with straw mats. At about the second spade full it was unanimously decided that possibly the manure might in time become short, but sweet—never! In five days the piles had heated sufficiently to be turned. We turned the stacks inside out thus insuring an even decomposition of the material, shaking the straw and watering any manure that had burned, and always tramping each layer firmly. The third time the piles were turned the manure had shrunk to half its original bulk and was stacked in one pile. That, we were told, would be the last turning as the manure was really getting quite short and sweet. About this time my enthusiasm for mushroom culture, damped by abounding backaches, began to wane and it was with anything but delight that T discovered on the 6

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(Cnlunir anb the (iftaking of ,iHobent 3lialg Italy is one of the youngest States in Europe. Its first national Parliament met in 1861, and in that same year Victor Emanuel II became King of Italy. Victor Emanuel II had been, up till that time, King of Sardinia, with his capital in Turin, in Piedmont. The kingdom of Sardinia comprised the islands of Sardinia, the province of Piedmont, and Nice and Savoy. The steps by which Victor Emanuel II went from the kingship of a small Italian kingdom to become ruler of all Italy from the Alps to Sicily, are the steps which mark the unification of the Italian States into one nation. Many forces worked together in accomplishing the unifying of Italy, and the man who was foremost in leading these forces to the fulfillment of the task was a Piedmontese, Camillo Cavour. Cavour was born in Turin in 1810, when the whole Italian peninsula was under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte. He grew up in the unsettled atmosphere in which Italy was left after the withdrawal of the French in 1815. Under the Napoleonic domination the Italian States had been divided into three groups for the purposes of government. Napoleon fell, the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, assigned the various States to their old governors or made changes in accordance with changed conditions. Southern Italy, from Naples southward, along with Sicily, was restored to the Bourbon dynasty, which had ruled them before the French invasion. The Bourbon king renamed his realm the “Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.” Piedmont and Genoa, in the northwest, and the island of Sardinia formed the Kingdom of Sardinia, under the former rulers, the House of Savory. Genoa had been a republic before the invasion, but against her will she was annexed to Sardinia. Lombardy returned to Austrian rule. Venetia, formerly a republic, was added to this to form the Austrian province of Lom-bardy-Vcnetia, governed by the Archduke Rainer of Austria, with capital at Milan. The duchies of Parma and Piacenza were assigned to Marie Louise, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, and daughter of Francis I, of Austria. These duchies were really under the domination of Austria. The duchy of Modena was given to a prince of the House of Austria, who became Francis IV of Modena. Tuscany was restored to its former Grand Duke, Ferdinand III, a brother of the Austrian Emperor. The rest of Italy, the central States, was returned to the papacy as the Papal States, with Rome as the capital. Of these six separate governments Austria, it is seen, possessed the richest and strongest, Lombardy-Venetia. She also virtually possessed Parma, Piacenza and Modena, through members of the Austrian royal family. The French influence caused an awakening of the life of northern Italy, and renewed progress in commerce, agriculture and social life. A new middle class arose, filled with liberal idea-s and dissatisfaction with the forms of government. But the peasantry were too ignorant or indifferent to interest themselves in changing the existing conditions. The Liberal movement was strongest among the middle class, which bore the larger part of the burdens of building the new Italy. All over Italy secret societies were formed to promulgate liberalism, and many conspiracies were hatched and uprisings attempted. The largest of the secret societies was the “Carbonari.” The activity of this society caused a revolt in Naples in 1820, which was soon suppressed by the King’s troops with Austrian aid. Another revolt of the Carbonari in Turin and 8