October, 1906 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



249 



Mushroom-culture in France 



By Jacques Boyer 



IHE tourist who for the first time visits the erect the public buildings of Paris, from a labyrinth of low 



southern and western plains of the suburbs and narrow chambers in which the workmen can scarcely 



of Paris is sure to be puzzled by certain quad- move about without stooping. 



rangular wooden towers which he perceives But the more modern exploitations, of which the accom- 



here and there rising out of the ground, and panying engraving gives a faithful picture, consists of spacious 



what still more excites his curiosity are the galleries, of which the roof is supported by strong pillars 



clouds of smoke that occasionally ascend from these strange carved out of the rock itself. 1 [ere the mushroom-cultivator 



structures, which are scattered over waste grounds, cultivated exercises his somber profession at his ease. The peg-ladder 



fields and gardens. These structures, however, do not serve perceived in the interior of the ventilating-shaft will allow us 



as housings for the secret prosecution of business of a criminal to descend into the mysterious cave where here and there 



or questionable nature, but are simply shafts for 

 the ventilation of old quarries that are at present 

 used for the cultivation of those mushrooms that 

 are so highly prized by the gourmets of the old and 

 new worlds. The Agaricus campestris, called the 

 fieltl-mushroom, the only species that it is possible 

 to domesticate, grows by preference on half-de- 

 composed horse-manure. Dr. Repin 

 says, "Its cradle was a melon-bed." 

 But we do not know the name of 

 the bright gardener who took some 

 ''spawn" from one of these beds in 

 which mushrooms had grown spon- 

 taneously, and sowed it in new man- 

 ure in order to obtain a second crop. 

 There is good reason, however, for 

 the belief that such culture origi- 

 nated in France in the latter half of 

 the eighteenth century, and that at 

 the outset the kitchen-gardeners who 

 engaged in it in the spring and fall 

 considered it as a natural adjunct to 



Ventilating-shaft of a Mushroom-cave 



sparkle the oil- or kerosene-lamps that guide the 

 cultivator. 



Much preliminary work must be done to con- 

 vert a quarry into a place for mushroom-culture. 

 After providing for the aeration of the galleries, 

 a well must be dug from which to obtain the 

 large quantity of water necessary, and after that 

 a supply of horse-manure must be 

 secured, this being the only material 

 favorable to the development of the 

 mushroom. Moreover, the quality 

 of the manure plays a leading part 

 in the yield. Preference is given to 

 the manure of heavy percherons or 

 other draught-horses which perform 

 a great amount of muscular labor 

 and are supplied with highly nitro- 

 genized food. 



After the material has been se- 

 lected, the mushroom-grower sub- 

 mits it to the following manipula- 

 tions: It is first arranged in heaps 



their business. Then, a century ago, a horticulturist named about three feet high called "flows," whose bulk sometimes 



Chambry conceived the idea of devoting the abandoned sub- reaches 3,500 cubic feet, and should be at the least 750 feet, 



terranean quarries to the culture, since in them are found the Then the whole is submitted to the action of the air for three 



conditions of temperature and humidity favorable to the de- weeks, and is turned over from time to time in order to dimin- 



velopment of the fungus. He succeeded thus in making a ish the intensity of the fermentation. In fact, according to 



handsome profit, with the consequence that he had many im- Dr. Repin, manure acquires nutritive properties during the 



itators, who have tried to lease all the excavations abandoned course of fermentation, for it is found that if fresh manure 



by the quarrymen, so that the mushroom industry soon be- is sterilized and sowed with spores of mushrooms beginning 



came one of the most prosper- 

 ous of the environs of Paris. 



At present, the suburban 

 mushroom exploitations are 

 almost exclusively distributed 

 over the left bank of the 

 Seine, in the section com- 

 prised between Meudon and 

 Ivry. The most important 

 are situated at Montrouge, 

 Clamart, Vanves, Chatillon, 

 Arcueil and Sceaux, and for- 

 merly extended to the Quar- 

 tier du Val-de-Grace in Paris. 



The galleries are excavated 

 in limestone, as at Carriere- 

 Saint-Denis; in gypsum, as at 

 Argenteuil; or in white clay, 

 as at Meudon ; and the oldest 

 of them (those from which 

 the architects of the middle 

 ages took the stone and 

 plaster that enabled them to 



v 



1m 





The Entrance to a Parisian Mushroom-cave 



to germinate, the fungus 

 never accomplishes its com- 

 plete evolution in such a me- 

 dium. It germinates and 

 sends out filaments, but does 

 not fructify. The manure, in 

 fermenting, becomes filled 

 with microbes, which, accord- 

 ing to the observations of 

 various biologists, appear to 

 be useful to mushroom-cul- 

 ture only through the prod- 

 ucts elaborated. Their role 

 is confined to favoring the 

 chemical combustion by rais- 

 ing the temperature at the 

 time of establishing the heaps 

 or "flows." However this 

 may be, at the end of a fort- 

 night, the manure possesses a 

 special odor somewhat recall- 

 ing that of the field-mush- 

 room itself, and is ready to 



