472 



CHAPTER XXI. 



MUSHROOM CULTURE. 



Mushroom growing as carried on around, or rather beneath 

 Paris and its environs, is the most extraordinary example of 

 culture that I have ever seen either above or below ground, 

 under glass or in the open air. To give the reader as good 

 an idea of it as I can we must visit one of the great 

 " Mushroom caves " at Montrouge, just outside the fortifica- 

 tions of Paris, on the southern side. The surface of the 

 ground is mostly cropped with Wheat ; but here and there 

 lie, ready to be transported to Paris, blocks of white stone, 

 which have recently been brought to the surface through 

 coalpit-like openings. There is nothing like a " quarry," 

 as we understand it, to be seen about; but the stone is 

 extracted as we extract coal, and with no interference 

 whatever with the surface of the ground. We find a 

 " Champignonniste" after some trouble, and he accompanies 

 us across some fields to the entrance of his subterranean 

 garden. It is a circular opening like the mouth of an old 

 well, but from it protrudes the head of a thick pole with 

 sticks thrust through it. This pole, the base of which rests 

 in darkness sixty feet below, is the easiest and indeed the 

 only way by which human beings can get into the mine. 

 I had an idea that one might enter sideways and in a more 

 agreeable manner, but it was not so. The artist who after- 

 wards descended to take the sketches here engraved was in 

 such a state of trepidation when he got to the margin and 

 looked down, that my friend M. Durand of Bourg-la-Reine, 

 who was kind enough to get these two sketches taken for 

 me at very considerable trouble to himself, seriously medi- 

 tated having him slung in cords. Down the shaky pole 

 our guide creeps, I follow, and soon reach the bottom, from 



