CULTIVATION. 255 
tion by the Metropolitan Railway Company for premises and 
business of a nurseryman at Kensington. The Railway had 
taken possession of a mushroom-ground, and the claim for 
compensation was £716. It was stated in evidence that the 
profits on mushrooms amounted to 100 or 150 percent. One 
witness said if £50 were expended, in twelve months, or perhaps 
in six months, the sum realized would be £200. 
Immense quantities of mushrooms are produced in Paris, as 
is well known, in caves, and interesting accounts have been 
written of visits to these subterranean mushroom-vaults of the 
gay city. In one of these caves, at Montronge, the proprietor 
gathers largely every day, occasionally sending more than 
400 pounds weight per day to market, the average being 
about 300 pounds. There are six or seven miles’ run of 
mushroom-beds in this cave, and the owner is only one of a 
large class who devote themselves to the culture of mushrooms. 
Large quantities of preserved mushrooms are exported, one 
house sending to England not less than 14,000 boxes in a year. 
Another cave near Frépillon was in full force in 1867, sending 
as many as 3,000 pounds of mushrooms to the Parisian markets 
daily. In 1867, M. Renaudot had over twenty-one miles of 
mushroom-beds in one great cave at Méry, and in 1869 there 
were sixteen miles of beds in a cave at Frépillon. The tem- 
perature of these caves is so equal that the cultivation of the 
mushroom is possible at all seasons of the year, but the best 
crops are gathered in the winter. 
Mr. Robinson gives an excellent account, not only of the sub- 
terranean, but also of the open-air culture of mushrooms about 
Paris. The open-air culture is never pursued in Paris during 
the summer, and rarely so in this country.* What might be 
termed the domestic cultivation of mushrooms is easy, that is, 
the growth by inexperienced persons, for family consumption, of 
a bed of mushrooms in cellars, wood-houses, old tubs, boxes, or 
other unconsidered places. Even in towns and cities it is not 
impracticable, as horse-dung can always be obtained from mews 
* This method is pursued with great success by Mr. Ingram, at Belvoir, and by 
Mr. Gilbert, at Burleigh. 
