A TALK ABOUT MUSHROOMS. 103 



benches, iu which the soil is reuewed every year ; this necessitates 

 ii complete removal of the old soil and introduction of fresh ; but 

 they don't use any wheelbarrows, handbarrows, or carrying boxes; 

 they carry out the old soil and bring in fresh soil on trucks run on 

 railroad tracks on the raised paths. These Avere originally made 

 to answer the double service of footpath and railroad, thus 

 materially reducing the cost of labor, and proportionately increas- 

 ing the profits. And the like of that is what we are coming to iu 

 mushroom growing. 



The Uncertainty of the Crop. — Mr. John Peck, a brick 

 manufacturer at Haverstraw, N. Y., started mushroom growing 

 three years ago. He happened to get a copy of the book, " Mush- 

 rooms : How to Grow Them," and it set him to thinking. He had 

 some large underground cellars which he was not using, and could 

 get plenty of fresh manure ; so he made up seven hundred and 

 thirty square feet of beds. His first mushrooms appeared January 

 18, 1892. On February 1, he made his first shipment, nine 

 pounds, and that week he shipped sixty-three and one-half pounds. 

 Up to June 4, he shipped from that space l,438f pounds, and 

 received from a commission merchant in New York $1,000 for 

 his crop. He had raised two pounds to the square foot, and as 

 this was something I never got from a bed, I looked upon his 

 success as phenomenal, especially as he never grew a mushroom 

 in his life before. Encouraged by such immense success, he more 

 than doubled his area of beds last year (1892-93) and this winter 

 he has about two thousand square feet of bed surface. In the 

 following letter he tells us about them. 



Haverstraw, N. Y., February 7, 1894. 



The more I see of mushrooms the less I think I know about 

 them. This is my third year. My first year, or rather first bed, 

 was a grand success, but last winter I could not grow any. I did 

 not get enough to pay for the manure. This winter, so far, I 

 have done better, but I have not gone far enough to know as to the 

 benefits of my present way of working. My cellars are of the 

 ordinary style, with flat roof, but owing to the roof being double I 

 have not been troubled by any drip. The heating is by an ordi- 

 nary stove in one end, and I find no trouble in keeping a tempera- 

 ture of from 55° to 60° in the coldest weather. 



