77 



CHAPTER VII. 



CULTURE ON PREPARED BEDS IN THE OPEN AIR 

 IN GARDENS AND FIELDS. 



MUSHROOMS may be grown with ease in the open air in gar 

 dens ; and this is a phase of the culture with which gar- 

 deners are not by any means sufficiently conversant. In fact, 

 mushroom-culture in the open air in private gardens may 

 be said not to exist at present, so very rarely is it seen. 



In a little pamphlet on mushroom-growing that has lately 

 appeared I find it stated that mushrooms may be grown 

 out of doors " in summer," but nothing about them be 

 ing grown in the open air in winter. The Paris growers 

 never attempt their culture in summer : the London 

 ones very rarely. It is in winter that their cultivation is 

 carried on in full vigour in the open air. Abundant crops 

 are grown in the open air by the market- gardeners of 

 London and Paris. F:rom their beds mushrooms are 

 gathered in quantities in mid- winter as well as in autumn. 

 The Paris market-gardener does not attempt the culture 

 in mid-summer, and does not think it practicable ; but 

 in the hot summer of 1868, and in the midst of the heats 



