PREFACE 



Mushrooms and their extensiye and profitable culture 

 should concern every one. For home consumption they 

 are a healthful and grateful food, and for market, when 

 successfully grown, they become a most profitable crop. 

 We can have in America the best market in the world 

 for fresh mushrooms ; the demand for them is increas- 

 ing, and the supply has always been inadequate. The 

 price for them here is more than double that paid in 

 any other country, and we have no fear of foreign com- 

 j)etition, for all attempts, so far, to import fresh mush- 

 rooms from Europe have been unsuccessful. 



In the most prosperous and progressive of all coun- 

 tries, with a population of nearly seventy millions of 

 people alert to every profitable, legitimate business, 

 mushroom-growing, one of the simplest and most re- 

 munerative of industries, is almost unknown. The 

 market grower already engaged in growing mushrooms 

 appreciates his situation and zealously guards his meth- 

 ods of cultivation from the public. This only incites 

 interest and inquisitiveness, and the people are becoming 

 alive to the fact that there is money in mushrooms and 

 an earnest demand has been created for information 

 about growing them. 



Tlie raising of mushrooms is within the reach of 

 nearly every one. Good materials to work with and 

 careful attention to all practical details should give good 

 returns. The industry is one in which women and 

 children can take part as well as men. It furnishes 

 indoor employment in winter, and there is very little 

 hard labor attaclied to it, while it can be made subsid- 

 iary to almost any other business, arid even a recreation 

 as well as a source of profit. 



In this book the endeavor has been, even at the risk 

 of repetition, to make the best methods as plain as pos- 



