14 
MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM. 
used in mushroom beds, is not exhausted of its fertility, 
but, instead, is well rotted and in a better condition to 
apply to the land than it was before being prepared for 
the mushroom crop. The farmer will not feel the little 
labor that it takes. There is no secret whatever con¬ 
nected with it, and skilled labor is unnecessary to make 
it successful. The commonest farm hand can do the 
work, which consists of turning the manure once every 
day or two for about three weeks, then building it into 
a bed and spawning and molding it. Nearly all the 
labor for the next ten or twelve weeks consists in main¬ 
taining an even temperature and gathering and market¬ 
ing the crop. 
Many women are searching for remunerative and 
pleasant employment upon the farm, and what can be 
more interesting, pleasant and profitable work for them 
than mushroom-growing ? After the farmer makes up 
the mushroom bed his wife or daughter can attend to 
its management, with scarcely any tax upon her time, 
and without interfering with her other domestic duties. 
And it is clean work; there is nothing menial about it. 
No lady in the land would hesitate to pick the mush¬ 
rooms in the open fields, how much less, then, should 
she hesitate to gather the fresh mushrooms from the 
clean beds in her own clean cellar ? Mushrooms are a 
winter crop ; they come when we need them most. The 
supply of eggs in the winter season is limited enough, 
and pin-money often proportionately short; but with an 
insatiable market demand for mushrooms all winter long, 
at good prices, no farmer’s wife need care whether the 
hens lay eggs at Christmas or not. When mushroom- 
growing is intelligently conducted there is more money 
in it than in hens, and with less trouble. 
