10 
MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM. 
ran high. But of recent years our markets in wintes 
have been so liberally supplied from the Southern States, 
that, in order to save themselves, our market gardeners 
have been compelled to take up a fresh line in their busi¬ 
ness, and renounce the winter frames in favor of green¬ 
houses, and grow crops which many of them did not 
handle before. These greenhouses are mostly long, wide 
(eighteen to twenty feet), low, hip-roofed (30°) struct¬ 
ures. In most of them the salad beds are made upon 
the floor, and the pathways are sunken a little so as to 
give headroom in walking and working. Others of 
these greenhouses are built a little higher, and middle 
and side benches are erected within them, as in the case 
of florists’ greenhouses, and with the view of growing 
salad plants on these benches as florists do carnations, 
and mushrooms under the benches. The mushrooms 
are protected from sunlight by a covering of light boards, 
or hay, or the space under the benches is entirely shut 
in, cupboard fashion, with wooden shutters. The tem¬ 
perature is very favorable for mushrooms,—steady and 
moderately cool, and easily corrected by the covering-in 
of the beds; and the moisture of the atmosphere of a 
lettuce house is about right for mushrooms. In such a 
house the day temperature may run up, with sunshine, 
to 65° or 70° in winter, but an artificial night tempera¬ 
ture of only 45° to 50° is maintained. Under these con¬ 
ditions, with the beds about fifteen inches thick, they 
should continue to yield a good crop of short-stemmed, 
stout mushrooms for two or three months, possibly 
longer. 
Besides growing the mushrooms in greenhouses our 
market gardeners are very much in earnest in cultivat¬ 
ing them in cellars. Some of these cellars are ordinary 
barn cellars, others—large and commodious—have been 
built under barns and greenhouses, purposely for the 
cultivation of mushrooms. Several of these mushroom 
