234 
I 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October j, my 
THE HOME 01' THE MUSHROOM. 
A VISITOB TO MR. BARTER'S RIDGES, BY LAN CE FIELD . 
STREET. 
On a vacant plot of building land in the immediate 
neighbourhood of the Harrow-road and within four 
miles of Charing-oross, is produced annually what is 
probably the most valuable crop grown in the open 
air, and without the aid of glass on any one acre of 
English soil. The space occupied is, indeed, rather 
more than an acre, the rent being just £12 a year, 
but the space devoted to mushrooms and manure is 
under an acre, and the uninitiated will be astonished 
to learn that from this small plot has been gathered 
in the last twelve months about 12,000 pounds weight 
of mushrooms, all of which have been sold at Oovent 
Garden at a price varying according to the season, 
but averaging ten pence a pound for the whole year. 
Now the value of 12,000 lb. at ten pence per pound 
is just £500 sterling. We have, therefore, the amazing 
circumstance that an acre of our metropolitan area 
has produced a richer garden crop than the cosiest 
corner of Kent or the most favoured nook on Lord 
Sudeley's jam-farm in Gloucestershire, for instance, a 
crop of 30 cwt. per acre of hops is so great as to be 
of rare occurrence. The average price obtained for 
hops is now about £3 per cwt. It is obvious, therefore, 
that the sum obtained for the produce of our Loudon 
acre of mushrooms is more than five times as great 
as what would be obtained in a particularly good year 
for a first-rate crop of hops. The following are 
exceptional prices that, as we are assured on competent 
authority, have been realised per statute acre for 
other fruits and vegetables in recent years: — 
£ 
Very early potatoes ... 
100 
Onions ... 
192 
Ear'y cos lettuces ... 
100 
Plums 
100 
Gooseberries 
100 
Strawberries 
150 
Blackcurrants 
168 
Filberts 
200 
It will be observed that onions and filberts head the 
list, but the produce of an acre of mushrooms is worth 
more than double that of either onions or filberts. What 
is still more extraordinary is that the wizard who has 
performed this miracle makes no secret of his method, 
and has not only been the means of encouraging many 
others to follow his example by showing them what 
he has done, and how he does it, but has published 
through the Journal of Horticulture, and subsequently 
in the form of a treatise written by Mr. John 
Wright, the Assistant Editor of that valuable journal, 
a full account of his method and its results. Of this 
volume a new edition will shortly be out, and it 
ought to be in the hands of all who wi h to master 
the msytery of mushroom-growing. How then is it 
done? As you enter the ground from the Oanterbury- 
road you at once see the source of so much fertility 
in various large heaps or stacks of stable manure. 
Of this commodity Mr. Barter's consumption is about 
twelve loads a week, costing on the spot 3s. 6d. a 
load. The larger portion of the ground is occupied 
by ridges three feet across at the base and three 
feet high, and covered carefully over with straw. 
This covering straw is the cleaner portion (about 
one-third) of the stable manure which is kept apart 
from the richer portion of what Mr. Hawthorn, at 
Brook Farm, used delicately to call the "gold mine," 
and is used for protecting the solid lidge beneath, 
Mr, Barter calculates that it needs two loads of 
manure, to build up three yards of ridge. Into the 
surface of J this ridge and over all its extent are stuck, 
like almonds in a c ike, fragments of the earth, bricks 
that contain the spawn of the mushroom. The entire 
ridge is then coated over with good fresh soil, a 
COnpl« of inches thick, and the whole is wrapped up 
warm in a coat or layer of the above-mentioned cleaner 
Htraw, which may be thicker or thinner according to 
the leSSOn. It is now at the end of May, 8 or 10 
inches thick. The spawn vegetating on the surface 
of the inner core of rich manure appears in the form 
of mushrooms on the surface of the thinner envelope 
of soil, and from the time of the first gathering — 
say, five to seven weeks after planting — the ridge con- 
tinues to bear more or less freely for a period vary- 
ing from six weeks to three mouths. When a ridge 
is exhausted and will bear no more mushrooms, the 
refuse manure is saleable to the gardeners at about 
half the price it originally cost, when it came from 
the stable. Such is, in brief, the economy of ouc of 
Mr. Barter's mushroom ridges. Three times a wtek, 
soon after dawn, his men may be seen, as I saw 
them this morning (May 24), passing down one of the 
ridges, knife in hand and a couple of baskets not far 
off. They uncover a few feet, the less the better, 
of the ridge, remove the mushrooms from its surface to 
the baskets, and covering ail up again as rapidly as they 
can, continue till the whole ridge is cleared, only the 
tiniest white specks being left, which will be ready 
when this ridge is next visited four days hence. Several 
cwt. are soon ready to be fetowed away in small chip 
baskets and sent off to market, to be retailed by the 
green grocer ultimately at about eighteen pence a pound, 
according to his conscience and the amount of competi- 
tion. Since Mr. Barter's experience was made public, 
the competition has greatly increased. Twenty years 
ago, when he was a enrpenter in Kentish-town, 5,000 
bush/els of spav.n wuuid have sufficed for all the 
musnroom-growers in England. Now he estimates the 
consumption at 25,000 bushels, of which one-fourth is 
produced in his own little laboratory at Lanceficld- 
street. In the last six years the price of mushrooms 
has fallen about 20 per cent. This is partly owing to 
increased competition at home, but partly also to 
importation from France. In some parts of France 
the existence of caves gives the mushroom-grower an 
advantage. Through the equability of the cave temper- 
ature, these French beds can be cropped all the year 
round. In the open air here, there are three months, 
from July to October, during which cropping ceases. 
Mr. Barter, however, has his compensation. When 
cropping is over, at the end of next month, all hands 
turn their attention to the production of spawn. This 
is a process requiring much skill and experience. Into 
the little house where operations are conducted, Mr. 
Barter does not invite visitors to enter. He has given 
them much information about the growth of the crop. 
They owe him a debt on that score. If they wish to 
pay it they can do so by buying from him their supplies 
of spawn, which he sells to all comers at five shillings 
per bushel of sixteen bricks. 
A strange variety of taste has prevailed in various 
countries in regard to mushrooms. In Russia I am 
assured that the peasants are never without them. 
They are hung up to dry in the roofs of the cottages 
like oak-cake in Lancashire, and from a greatly 
esteemed relish to all sorts of dishes. In some parts 
of Germauy also they are largely preserved in Drine 
for cooking purposes. In England, however, it is only 
lately that they have come at all into general use. 
When the potato had not yet come into vogue, when 
Jerusalem artichokes, the potato of Canada, as '.hey 
were called, were equally unknown to the public, and the 
vegetable diet of England was restricted to very few dish- 
es, it might have been supposed that mushrooms would 
have been highly esteemed. Not so, however; the old 
herbalists have little or nothing to say in their favour. 
Here is what John Gerarde says, writing iu Queen 
Elizabeth's time from his garden inHolborue: "Some 
mushrume6 grow forth on the earth; other upon the 
bodies of old trees, which differ altogether in kindes. 
Many wantons that dwell neere the sea, and have fish 
at will, are very desirous of change of diet to feed 
upon the birds of the mountains ; and such as dwell 
upon the hills of champion grounds do long after sea 
fish. Many that have plenty of both do hunger after 
the earthy excrescences called Mushrumes; whereof 
some are very venomous and full of poyson, others not 
so noisome; and neither of them very wholesome 
meate." And again, "Few of them are good to be 
eaten, and most of them do suffocate and strangle the 
eater. Therefore I give my advice to those that love 
such strange and new tangled meates to beware of 
licking honey among thorns, least the sweetness of the 
