1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



573 



diflferent kinds of vehicles for shipment I 

 said, "Friends, I hope you are a happy lot 

 of men— you ought to be." 



I smiled as I said it. One of them asked 

 why they should be particularly happy. I 

 said, "Because it ought to make any man 

 happy to have so mucti beauty all around on 

 eveiy hand, and I hope you appreciate it." 



"Well, stranger, I believe we are, as a 

 rule, tolerably happy, and thankful too; but 

 Jim there is the happiest man in the lot, for 

 he belongs to the Salvation Army." 



"Yes,' piped in another, "Jim does be- 

 long to the Salvation Army; but, although 

 it is not very long since he joined, he is 

 already a ' lef tenant.' " 



Then they began making jokes at poor 

 Jim. One said, "Yes, they put him in 

 ' leftenant ' so he could handle the money; 

 and I guess it is that part oi it that makes 

 him 2>'^i'ticularly happy." 



Jim's face began to color up, notwithstand- 

 ing he had recently joined the Salvation 

 Army. His temper was aroused. I saw it, 

 and began to feel anxious. I said, "Jim, I 

 am very glad to know that there is at least 

 one man who has united with the Salvation 

 Army. I hope there are more of you, and 

 that you will not be afraid to show your 

 colors, even though they do try to run on 

 you." But before I could stem the curi'ent 

 poor Jim got mad, and swore at his tor- 

 mentors. It made me think of poor Peter 

 when the damsel said, "This man also was 

 with him." 



As my time was very limited — in fact, I 

 had to catch a train where Mrs. Root was to 

 meet me — I did not find out poor Jim's name; 

 but I could only pray that the Holy Spirit 

 would prompt him to stand up at the 

 "barracks" in Philadelphia at the first op- 

 portunity, and confess to his comrades how 

 he had been tempted and had fallen, and 

 ask the dear Lord and Savior to forgive 

 him for his want of courage to hold the fort 

 at a critical time. 



On page 1595 of last year I said I would 

 try to visit the locality near Philadelphia 

 where mushroom-growing was such a great 

 success. Through the kindness of Mr. H. P. 

 Fawcett, of Brandywine Summit, I spent an 

 hour or two in looking over the mushroom- 

 growers. The first one was where they were 

 grown under the greenhouse- beds. The firm 

 of Harvey & Sons makes a specialty of car- 

 nations, and they have some of the finest 

 up-to-date glass and steel structures it has 

 ever been my fortune to visit. A little inci- 

 dent of recent occurrence particularly inter- 

 ested me. Lord & Burnham, the celebrated 

 greenhouse-builders, furnished them the ma- 

 terial, drawings, specifications, etc., for a 

 large up-to-date greenhouse. I have forgot- 

 ten the dimensions, but it was an immense 

 alYair. Harvey & Sons decided they could 

 put up the buildings themselves if Lord & 

 Burnham would furnish the materials. They 

 did so; but during one of the recent heavy 

 snowstoi-ms the weight of the snow broke 

 the house down. The loss on the house and 

 contents was something like $2000. As they 



put up the building themselves, they sup- 

 posed the Lord *fc Burnham people would not 

 consider themselves responsible. But it was 

 one of their happy surprises when this great 

 company looked the thing over and decided 

 to make good the entire loss, because the 

 engineer who had furnished specifications 

 for material to be used had made an error. 

 I mention this because I am glad to say a 

 word for a worthy manufacturing firm. 



The mushroom houses, or caves, that pleased 

 me most were cheap wooden structures cover- 

 ing a mushroom-bed placed on the ground, 

 not unlike beds in an ordinary vegetable- 

 garden. The roof is made double, and filled 

 with shavings to keep out the frost. A boiler 

 and hot-water pipes keep the temperature at 

 about 50 or 00 degrees. About 56, I think, 

 is the most successful for mushroom-growing. 

 A successful bed will begin to furnish a crop 

 after about five or six weeks, and the mush- 

 rooms may be gathered every day for a 

 period of three or even four months. Both 

 the American and European spawn are now 

 on the market; but the European spawn 

 shows a better yield than any thing grown 

 in America. 



Many of the structures are ordinary rough 

 buildings, two or three stories high, includ- 

 ing a basement. The mushroom-beds re- 

 semble an ordinary wagon-box, only they 

 are very much longer— in fact, as long as the 

 building. These Ijoxes, or beds, are placed 

 one above the other, with walks between 

 them. The overhead walks are simply planks 

 laid between the beds to walk on. The one 

 who does the work will, by stooping over, 

 handle two tiers of beds from one plank. 

 The walls are packed with sawdust or shav- 

 ings to retain heat. The heat is maintained 

 by means of boilers and hot water in the 

 pipes before described. 



Although there are few if any entire fail- 

 ures, the industry is still more or less uncer- 

 tain. Some beds go away ahead in yield of 

 other similar beds; and it is as yet a hard 

 matter to tell just why one bed does so much 

 better than another one. Experts in the 

 business, or perhaps I might say those who 

 seem to have good luck, especially when 

 prices are good, have several times sold 

 enough mushrooms the first year to pay for 

 the building and all the expense of the plant. 

 Now, do not get the idea into your head, be- 

 cause of this statement, that you can get rich 

 by growing mushrooms. May be you can, 

 and may be you can not. From the fact that 

 there are more mushrooms grown around 

 the vicinity of Brandywine Summit — more, 

 perhaps, than anywheie else in the United 

 States — I am inclined to think the soil or cli- 

 mate, or something else, is particularly fa- 

 vorable for the industry in that locality. 

 The prices received -or the crop are all the 

 way from 30 cents to $1.00 a pound. I have 

 never learned that the p-ice has gone lower 

 than 30 cents, and several times it has gone 

 as high as $1.25. At present, growers are 

 getting from 35 to 40 cents. The greatest 

 expense for material is for stable manure 

 brought from the livery-barns in Philadelphia. 



