xxxii 



INTRODUCTION. 



The sketches and plan that illustrate it — obtained with 

 some difficulty — are the first that have been published on 

 the subject, so far as I am aware, and will help the reader 

 to obtain a fair idea of places that have been seen by very 

 few English people^ and of which most Frenchmen have 

 only a mysterious notion. The perusal of this chapter will 

 doubtless suggest trials of the culture to owners of mines 

 and cavernous burrowings of any kind ; and perhaps in time 

 to come Mushrooms may be a readily obtainable commodity 

 in our markets, even in winter and spring, when they are 

 usually very high priced and dear with us. 



In conclusion^ I may allude to a subject that is familiar 

 to those of my readers who peruse the horticultural pub- 

 lications of the day — viz.^ the fierce attacks that have been 

 made upon me for my advocacy of some of the practices 

 herein described. These attacks have chiefly come from 

 certain horticulturists who boast of having traversed France 

 many times during the past thirty years, and who, naturally 

 perhaps, hold that a " tyro/"" a young traveller/^ &c. &c._, 

 who first visited France in 1867, cannot possibly have seen 

 anything good or instructive that has escaped their expe- 

 rienced and sagacious eyes. The only reply I shall now or 

 in future make to these gentlemen is in the form of a request 

 to the horticultural public. Test such matters as interest 

 you; surrender not your judgment either to young or old — 

 to the self-sufficient sage or the presumptuous student — but 

 ascertain for yourselves who is right. 



