W* RURAL NEW*YORKER 
1379 
Mushroom Growing for an Old Man 
The question is asked by an old man 
whether it would he a good thing for him 
to sell his Liberty bonds and invest his 
money in a plant for growing mushrooms. 
The past few years there have been some 
fine crops of mushrooms grown by men 
I know in Chester County, Pa., and there 
have been others who. with practically 
the same equipment and materials, have 
had almost an entire failure. This only 
shows that the growing of this crop is 
nearly as much of a gamble now as it 
was 10 years ago when I stopped trying 
it, with a loss of over .$3,000 to make good 
by hard, work along other lines. 
There were several very profitable crops 
grown last year, yet in spilj of this I 
would consider investing money in this 
business the same as buyinj come of the 
stocks unscrupulous crooks trying to 
exchange for Liberty bonds; the only dif¬ 
ference here would be that in case the 
crop was a failure, the loss would be only 
for materials, and the houses would be at 
hand for another try-out. For an elderly 
man to undertake this business -without 
a thorough working knowledge of the busi¬ 
ness and sufficient capital to employ help 
and tide him over in case a crop is a fail¬ 
ure, would be a very serious risk. The 
work is about as hard and unpleasant 
as anything one can undertake, though ! 
where there is a suitable place—as a cool 
cellar in Summer and warm in Winter, 
and the finances such that a failure crop 
will not be too severe a blow, it is an 
interesting crop to experiment with. There 
is a little of the gambler in the most of 
us, and this gives us an opportunity to 
indulge this side of our nature without 
the opprobrium usually attached to the 
practice. 
After that paragraph it will sound good 
to say that I am going to give it another 
try-out this Summer, after a lapse of about 
10 yq^irs. We have a large cellar here 
prepared for the addition of several boil¬ 
ers in case we wish to increase our green¬ 
house plant in the future. The cellar is 
12 feet deep and consequently very cool 
in Summer, and in the Winter it is 
warmed by the heating plant being in 
operation. We are not going into it very 
heavily—setting aside a portion of a car 
of manure that was not needed for other 
purposes. We have placed this manure 
in a pile four feet, deep, watered it heav¬ 
ily, and will turn it round four times at 
intervals of one week, each time putting 
a few inches of good soil on top, and 
watering it so that it does not firefang. 
One week after the last turning it will 
be placed in the cellar, tramped in beds 
eight inches deep, though many only use 
the 6-in. beds now. The temperature 
will rise in those beds to over 100 de¬ 
grees. When it gets down to SO it will 
be spawned with American-made spawn 
cut into pieces the size of an egg and 
placed about an inch and a half under 
the surface. The bed will then be ham¬ 
mered solid, and in about two weeks a 
casing of two inches of sifted soil will be 
spread evenly over the surface.* 
We hope the cellar will be damp enough 
that no water will be needed on the sur¬ 
face of the bed till the mushrooms begin 
to appear (and we will fervently hope 
they will appear), then water will be ap¬ 
plied just heavy enough to keep the casing 
soil moist without penetrating the 
manure. If we have any mushrooms to 
pick the holes will be filled with soil from 
which the stems are pulled, as these holes 
will allow the water to reach the manure. 
An old bed sometimes will be benefited 
by a rather heavy watering. 
Some crops will bear for four weeks 
and others will bear for four mouths, and 
there never was a crop grown that the 
greatest expert could tell definitely what 
it would do till he had the inonev in his 
pocket, as the market is nearly as un¬ 
certain as the crop. From the above 
brief description can be seen the work 
and attention required, and with fresh, 
steaming horse manure as the medium, 
it is not any too pleasant. 
ELMER J. WEAVES. 
A widely known Highland drover sold 
a horse to an Englishman. A few 
days afterwards the buyer returned to 
him. “You said that, horse had no 
faults.” “Weel, no mair had he.” “lie’s 
nearly blind!” said the indignant Eng¬ 
lishman. “Why, mon, that’s no’ his fau’t 
—that’s his misfortune."—Blighty, Lon¬ 
don. 
We Share the Responsibility 
Buying a Paige Car is very much like 
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bond. Both the principal and interest 
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company that has never failed to meet 
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*/v f . i 
Each car that is produced by this factory 
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cars and we gladly share the response 
bility of ownership. 
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