CHAPTER XT. 
THE PROPER TEMPERATURE. 
The best temperature at which to keep the mushroom 
house or cellar is 55° to 57°. But much depends upon 
the method of growing the esculent; the construction 
of the house or cellar, and other circumstances. Mush¬ 
rooms can be successfully grown in buildings in which 
the temperature may be as low as 20° or as high as 65°. 
By covering the beds well with hay or other protecting 
material they can be kept warm, even in sharp frosty 
weather, as the London market gardeners do with their 
outdoor beds in winter; but when the temperature in 
the structure in which the mushrooms are grown aver¬ 
ages as high as 70° we can not hope for success; indeed, 
65° is too high. 
A high temperature in a close house or cellar is injuri¬ 
ous ; it hurries in the crop and forces up the mushrooms 
weak and thin-fleshed and with ungainly, long stems; 
it soon exhausts the bed. The time when its evil effects 
are least visible is early in the fall and late in spring 
when the outside temperature is high, and when the 
beds are in somewhat airy rather than close quarters. In 
the Dosoris cellars there is a steady difference of about 
5° in the temperature between the end next the boiler, 
which is kept at 60° precisely, and that of the farther 
end, which registers 55° steadily. There is very little 
difference in the weight of crop produced on the beds at 
either end of these cellars, but what little there is is in 
favor of the cooler end. At 60° the crop begins to come 
in in six to seven weeks after spawning, lasts for three 
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