30 CIRCULAR 2 51, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



1 inch in diameter. They may be marked United States Small, 

 United States Medium, United States Large, and United States 

 Extra Large if they conform to the quality requirements under 

 United States No. 1 and the following size specifications: Small, 

 under 1 inch in diameter ; medium, 1 to 1% inches ; large, 1% to 3 

 inches ; extra large, over 3 inches. Packages in any of these grades 

 should contain fresh mushrooms of similar varietal characteristics 

 which are not badly misshapen, are free from disease, insect injury, 

 open cap, spots, and damage caused by dirt, or by mechanical or 

 other means, and having stems properly trimmed and not more than 

 1% inches long. 3 



Mushrooms are canned in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ohio, Minne- 

 sota, and Colorado. Usually they are received at the cannery and 

 processed on the day they are picked. Button mushrooms are pre- 

 ferred for canning. These are sorted out on a moving belt, carried 

 immediately to vats where they are preheated until they have shrunk 

 about 40 to 50 per cent in bulk, placed in cans, weighed, and 

 processed. 



A few growers have tried marketing dried mushrooms, but this 

 product has not seemed to find much favor with the consumer and 

 must meet the competition offered by dried mushrooms from the 

 Orient and southern Europe. 



COSTS AND RETURNS 



Mushroom growers must meet many of the same economic difficul- 

 ties that confront the producers of other perishable crops. The cost 

 of production is difficult to predict and the sale price is almost 

 entirely out of the grower's control. Although the cost of raising a 

 crop is largely fixed, the cost of producing a pound of mushrooms 

 often varies considerably from one crop to another, depending on the 

 yield per square foot of bed space. The price differs from one 

 locality to another and from one season to another. In the East 

 prices are usually somewhat higher during the summer than in the 

 winter, because fewer mushrooms are grown in the summer. Warm 

 spells in the early fall and late spring may greatly increase the supply 

 of mushrooms for several days at a time by raising the temperature 

 in mushroom houses. The temperature rise is reflected in an 

 increased rate of growth of the mushrooms and in the production of 

 a larger proportion of buttons. In congested centers of mushroom 

 growing this usually occurs in hundreds of mushroom houses at the 

 same time and the grower often finds himself in the untenable posi- 

 tion of producing the most mushrooms when the price is below the 

 cost of production. 



If a yield of 1 pound per square foot is assumed, the cost of pro- 

 ducing mushrooms in eastern Pennsylvania in 1930 was about 26 cents 

 a pound. This may be divided as follows: Interest on investment, 

 depreciation, and upkeep of buildings, 5 cents; raw materials, 14 

 cents; and labor, 7 cents. (Table 1.) The estimated cost of manure 

 may differ as much as 3 or 4 cents from one locality to another ; the 



3 Copies of the latest United States specifications for mushroom grades and sizes, in- 

 cluding the definition of terms and the percentage of tolerance of off types, can be obtained 

 on request from the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C. 



