A TALK ABOUT MUSHROOMS. 99 



are a comparatively inexpensive auxiliary to their other business ; 

 almost all they receive fx'om it, above the price of labor and 

 spawn, is net profit ; for they need the loam and rotted manure in 

 their florist-work anyway. 



Chicken raisers have also taken to the mushroom business for 

 profit ; they want to grow something that will briug them money 

 in the winter time. 



I need not tell you about the increasing enthusiasm of private 

 gardeners, for in the neighborhood of Boston you have among 

 them some of the best mushroom growers in the country. 



What will be the effect of this rapid increase in the production 

 of mushrooms? It will reduce the price from a fictitious to a 

 popular basis, and place a wholesome delicacy on the tables of the 

 middle classes, which, hitherto, has been restricted to those of 

 the wealthiest. Many families who now use the tasteless, indi- 

 gestible putty-balls from imported cans, will repudiate the foreign 

 article and accept no other than the wholesome, toothsome, juicy 

 domestic product. 



But we should see to it that the price does not fall so low as to 

 render the cultivation of mushrooms unprofitable. How can we 

 do this? By proclaiming their virtues and making them popular 

 with the multitude. Eat them yourselves and encourage others to 

 eat them. Talk about them; write about them; keep them con- 

 tinually before the minds and eyes of the people ; make them 

 popular and increase their consumption ; the demand will then 

 regulate the price. To make mushrooms generally popular three 

 things are necessary, namely, to increase the supply, moderate the 

 price, and bring them to the notice of the people. 



Messrs. J. M. Thorburn & Co., of New York, wrote to me the 

 other day: "If mushrooms could be obtained in the market at 

 moderate prices, the demand would increase tenfold at once." A 

 Philadelphia gentleman writes me : " One thing we have pressing- 

 need of now, is a good Distributing Agency in every big city. 

 Take Philadelphia ; if it was properly canvassed by a well 

 equipped company for distributing the product of the growers 

 direct to the consumers, it would use twenty times as many mush- 

 rooms as it does now. There are a few commission fruit men 

 here, who have most of the business, and they cater to some of 

 the hotels, and the enormous host of well-to-do people are not 

 approached at all. Another thing — these well-to-do folks are 



