No. 4.] GROWING OF MUSHROOMS. 



383 



ized for some time by various commercial growers of mush- 

 rooms. The houses usually set two or three feet below the 

 level of the ground, and dirt is piled up on either side to 

 the level of the plates which support the roof. These 

 types of houses have usually been built of wood, and the 

 roof is covered with hay or marsh grass. The beds are 

 either built on the ground, or slightly raised. In the latter 

 case they are provided with board sides, thus leaving room 

 for a path, as shown in Fig. 4. Some improvement has 

 been made in recent years in the style of houses for mush- 

 room culture. One of the principal objections to houses 

 such as shown in Figs. 4 and 5 is that they are very likely 



Fig. 6. — Cross-section of a cement and corrugated-iron mushroom liouse, banked up 

 with earth. The house is provided with a truss roof. C, corrugated iron ; Ji, wooden 

 truss; li, lialf-inch iron tie rod. The house is fifteen feet wide and four feet high at 

 ends to iron roof, and is heated from lioiler. 



to rot out quickly, and it is expensive to renew them. An 

 experienced mushroom grower informed me that such a 

 house would only last about three years. On account of 

 the dampness arising from the heat of the manure, and the 

 unfavorable situation of material constructed of wood, rot- 

 ting occurs very quickly. The conditions in a nuishroom 

 house are exceedingly favorable for timber-destroying fungi, 

 thus causing premature dcca,y. The house shown in Fig. 6 

 is a more recent model, used by Wyman Brothers, market 

 gardeners, Arlington, Mass. It is an even-span house, 

 fifteen feet wide, and about four feet high at the sides. 

 The len<j:th of such a house is of course immaterial. The 



