CULTIVATION. 255 



ticm 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 per cent. 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 Montrouge, 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 les3 than 14,000 boxes in a year. 

 Another cave near Fr^pillon 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 Mery, and in 1869 there 

 were sixteen miles of beds in a cave at Erepillon. 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 mewa 



• This method is pursued with great success by Mr. Ingram, at Belvoir, and by 

 Mr. Gilbert, at Burleigh. 



