CHAPTER XXI. 



MUSHEOOM GEO WING IN THE PAEI8 CAVES. 



In caTes and subterranean passages underneath the 

 city of Paris and its environs, thousands of tons of mush- 

 rooms are artificially produced every year. These under- 

 ground caves and tunnels are abandoned quarries from 

 which vrhite building stone and plaster have been exca- 

 vated, and as the veins of stone permeated through the 

 bowels of the earth, 40 to 135 feet deep, so were they 

 quarried, and the blocks brought to the surface through 

 vertical shafts. It is these tunnels, varying in height 

 and width as the veins of stone varied, that are now used 

 for mushroom-growing. M. Lachaume, in his book, 

 The Cave Mushroom, tells us : "In the Department of 

 the Seine there are 3000 quarries ; those which have been 

 abandoned and which are situated close to Paris at 

 Montrouge, Bagneux, Vangirard, Mery, Chdtillon, Vitry, 

 Honilles, and St. Denis, are used by the 350 mushroom- 

 growers of the Department. There are several of these 

 quarries with horizontal galleries driven into the calcar 

 reous rock from the level of the road, which are mostly 

 large enough to accommodate a good sized cart, but the 

 majority can only be entered, like many coal mines, by 

 vertical shafts 100 to 125 feet deep, down which every- 

 thing has to pass. The laborers climb up and down a 

 ladder, and the fresh manure is shoveled down the shaft 

 from above, the waste stufE and mushrooms being hauled 

 up in baskets from beneath by means of a windlass." 



The manure used is obtained from the Paris stables 

 and furnished by contractors, with whom the mushroom 



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