10 MUSHEOOMS, HOW TO GEOW THEM. 



ran high. But of recent years our markets in winte* 

 have been so liberally supplied from the Southern States, 

 that, in order to save themselves, our market gardeners 

 have been compelled to take up a fresh line in their busi- 

 ness, and renounce the winter frames in favor of green- 

 houses, and grow crops which many of them did not 

 handle before. These greenhouses are mostly long, wide 

 (eighteen to twenty feet), low, hip-roofed (30°) struct- 

 ures. In most of them the salad beds are made upon 

 the floor, and the pathways are sunken a little so as to 

 give headroom in walking and working. Others of 

 these greenhouses are built a little higher, and middle 

 and side benches are erected within them, as in the case 

 of florists' greenhouses, and with the view of growing 

 salad plants on these benches as florists do carnations, 

 and mushrooms under the benches. The mushrooms 

 are protected from sunlight by a covering of light boards, 

 or hay, or the space under the benches is entirely shut 

 in, cupboard fashion, with wooden shutters. The tem- 

 perature is very favorable for mushrooms, — steady and 

 moderately cool, and easily corrected by the covering-in 

 of the beds ; and the moisture of the atmosphere of a 

 lettuce house is about right for mushrooms. In such a 

 house the day temperature may run up. with sunshine, 

 to 65° or 70° in winter, but an artificial night tempera- 

 ture of only 45° to 50° is maintained. Under these con- 

 ditions, with the beds about fifteen inches thick, they 

 should continue to yield a good crop of short-stemmed, 

 stout mushrooms for two or three months, possibly 

 longer. 



Besides growing the mushrooms in greenhouses our 

 market gardeners are very much in earnest in cultivat- 

 ing them in cellars. Some of these cellars are ordinary 

 bam cellars, others — ^large and commodioiis — ^have been 

 built under bams and greenhouses, purposely for the 

 cultivation of mushrooms. Several of these mushroom 



