CHAPTER II. 



GEO WING MUSHEOOJIS IN CELLAES. 



Underground Cellars. — Mushrooms require a uni- 

 form moderately low temperature and moist atmosphere, 

 and will not thrive where draughts, or sudden fluctuar 

 tions of temperature or moisture prevail. Therefore an 

 underground cellar is the best of all structures in which 

 to grow mushrooms. The cellar is everybody's mush- 

 room house. 



Cellars are under dwellings, barns, and often under 

 other out-bnildings. These cellars are imperative for 

 domestic purposes, for storing apples, potatoes and 

 other root crops and perishable produce ; and for the^e 

 uses we need to make them frost proof and dry. These 

 cellars are ideal mushroom houses, and any one who has 

 a good cellar can grow mushrooms in it. In fact, our 

 market gardeners who are making money out of mush- 

 rooms find it pays them to excavate and build cellars 

 expressly for growing mushrooms. Indeed, some of our 

 market gardeners who have never grown a mushroom or 

 seen one grown, but who know well that some of their 

 neighbors are making money out of this business, in- 

 stinctively feel that the first step in mushroom-growing 

 is a cellar. It is almost incredible how secretly the 

 market growers guard everything in connection with 

 mushroom-growing from the outside world, and even 

 from one another; in fact, in some cases their next-door 

 neighbors and life-long intimate friends have never been 

 inside their mushroom cellars. 

 If a cellar is to be wholly devoted to mushroom-grow- 

 15 



