Mushroom Culture Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 19. Newly-made bed against wall of cave.]

The champignonniste pointed with pride to the way in which the flakes of sp.a.w.n had begun to spread through the little beds, and pa.s.sed on--sometimes stooping very low to avoid the pointed stones in the roof--to where the beds were in a more advanced state. Here we saw little, smooth, putty-coloured ridges running along the sides of the pa.s.sages, and wherever the rocky subway became as large as a small bedroom two or three little beds were placed parallel to each other.

These beds were new, and dotted all over with mushrooms no bigger than sweet pea seeds, affording an excellent prospect of a crop. Each bed contains a much smaller body of manure than is ever the case in our gardens. They are not more than twenty inches high, and about the same width at the base; while those against the sides of the pa.s.sages are not so large as those placed in the open s.p.a.ces. The soil, with which they are covered to the depth of about an inch, is nearly white, and is simply sifted from the rubbish of the stone-cutters above, giving the recently-made bed the appearance of being covered with putty.

Although we are from seventy to eighty feet below the surface of the ground, everything looks quite neat--in fact, very much more so than could have been expected, not a particle of litter being met with. A certain length of bed is made every day in the year, and as the men finish one gallery or series of galleries at a time, the beds in each have a similar character. As we proceed to those in full bearing, creeping up and down narrow pa.s.sages, winding always between the two little narrow beds against the wall on each side, and pa.s.sing now and then through wider nooks filled with two or three little beds, daylight is again seen. This time it comes through another well-like shaft, formerly used for getting up the stone, but now for throwing down the requisite materials into the cave. At the bottom lies a large heap of the white earth before alluded to, and a barrel of water--for gentle waterings are required in the quiet, cool, black stillness of these caves, as well as in mushroom-houses on the upper crust.

Once more we plunge into a pa.s.sage as dark as ink, and find ourselves between two lines of beds in full bearing, the beautiful white b.u.t.ton-like mushrooms appearing everywhere in profusion along the sides of the diminutive beds, something like the drills which farmers make for green crops. As the proprietor goes along he removes sundry bunches that are in perfection, and leaves them on the spot, so that they may be collected with the rest for to-morrow's market. He gathers largely every day, occasionally sending more than 400 lb. weight per day, the average being about 300 lb.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 20. View in mushroom-cave.]

A moment more and we are in an open s.p.a.ce, a sort of chamber, say 20 feet by 12, and here the little beds are arranged in parallel lines, an alley of not more than four inches separating them, the sides of the beds being literally blistered all over with mushrooms. There is one exception; on half of the bed and for about ten feet along, the little mushrooms have appeared and are appearing, but they never get larger than a pea, and shrivel away, "bewitched" as it were. At least such was the inference drawn from the cultivator's expression about it. He gravely attributed it to a ridiculously superst.i.tious cause. Frequently the mushrooms grow in bunches or "rocks," as they are called, and in such cases those that compose the little ma.s.s are lifted all together.

The sides of one bed here had been almost stripped by the taking away of such bunches, and it is worthy of note that they are not only taken out, root and all, when being gathered, but the very spot in which they grew is sc.r.a.ped out, so as to get rid of every trace of the old bunch, and the s.p.a.ce is covered with a little earth from the bottom of the heap. It is the habit to do this in every case, and when the gatherer leaves a small hole from which he has pulled even a solitary mushroom, he fills it with some of the white earth from the base, no doubt intending to gather other mushrooms from the same spots before many weeks are over.

The "b.u.t.tons" look very white, and are apparently of prime quality. The absence of all littery coverings and dust, and the daily gatherings, secure them in what we may term perfect condition. I visited this cave on the 6th of July, 1868, and doubt very much if at that season a more remarkable crop of mushrooms could be anywhere found than was presented in this subterranean chamber--a mere speck in the s.p.a.ce devoted to mushroom culture by one individual.

When I state that there are six or seven miles run of mushroom-beds in the ramifications of this cave, and that the owner is but one of a large cla.s.s who devote themselves to mushroom culture, the reader will have some opportunity of judging of the extent to which it is carried on about Paris. These caves not only supply the wants of the city above them, but those of England and other countries also, large quant.i.ties of preserved mushrooms being exported, one house alone sending to our own country no less than 14,000 boxes annually. There were some traces of the teeth of rats on the produce, and it need not be said that these enemies are not agreeable in such a place; but they did not seem to have committed any serious ravages, and are probably only casual visitors, who take the first opportunity of obtaining more varied food than is afforded them by these caves. To traverse the pa.s.sages any further is needless--there is nothing to be seen but a repet.i.tion of the culture above described, every available inch of the cave being occupied. We again find our way to the bottom of the shaft, carefully mount the rather shaky pole one at a time, and again stand in the hot sun in the midst of the ripe wheat.

In traversing the fields two things relating to mushroom culture are to be observed--heaps of white gritty earth, sifted from the _debris_ of the white stone, and large heaps of stable manure acc.u.mulated for mushroom growing, and undergoing preparation for it. That preparation is different from what we are accustomed to give it. It is ordinary stable manure, or very short stuff, not droppings, and is thrown into heaps four or five feet high, and perhaps thirty feet wide. The men were employed turning this over, the ma.s.s being afterwards stamped down with their feet, a water-cart and pots being used to thoroughly water the manure where it is dry and whitish.

As many will feel an interest in the cave culture of the mushroom, and perhaps wish to see it for themselves, I may state that it is difficult to obtain permission to visit the caves, and many persons would not like the look of the "ladder" which affords an entrance. Even with a well-known Parisian horticulturist I had some difficulty in entering them. I was informed that one champignonniste in the same neighbourhood demands the exorbitant price of twenty francs for a visit to his cave.

As the visit is the work of some little time, no visitor should put the cultivators to this trouble without offering some slight recompense--say not less than five francs. The above cave is but a sample of many in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris.

We will next visit a mushroom-cave of another type at some little distance from that city. It is situated near Frepillon, Mery-sur-Oise--a place which may be reached in an hour or so by the Chemin de fer du Nord, pa.s.sing by Enghien, the valley of Montmorency and Pontoise, and alighting at Auvers. There are vast quarries in the neighbourhood, both for building-stone and the plaster so largely used in Paris. The materials are not quarried in the ordinary way by opening up the ground, nor by the method employed at Montrouge and elsewhere in the suburbs of Paris, but so that the interior of the earth looks like a vast gloomy cathedral. In 1867 the mushroom culture was in full force at Mery, and as many as 3000 lbs. a day were sometimes sent from thence to the Paris market; but the mushroom is a thing of peculiar taste, and these quarries are now empty--cleaned out and left to rest. After a time the great quarries seem to become tired of their occupants, or the mushrooms dislike the air; the quarries are then well cleaned out, the very soil where the beds rested being sc.r.a.ped away, and the place left to recruit itself for a year or two. In 1867 M. Renaudot had the extraordinary length of over twenty-one miles of mushroom-beds in one great cave at Mery; last year there were sixteen miles in a cave at Frepillon. This is a clean, lonely village, just touching on the gigantic cemetery which M. Haussmann projected.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 21. Entrance to large subterranean quarry.]

The distant view of the entrance to the quarries has much the appearance of an English chalk-pit. But there is a great rude arch cut into the rock, and into this we enter, meeting presently a waggon coming forth with a load of stones, the waggoner with lamp in hand. To the visitor who has seen the mushroom caves near Paris, where it is sometimes necessary to stoop very low to avoid knocking one's head against the roof rocks, the surprise is great on getting a little way in. At least it is so soon as one can see; the darkness is so profound that a few candles or lamps merely make it more visible. The tunnel we traverse is nearly regularly arched, masonry being used here and there, so as to render the support secure and somewhat symmetrical, the arches being flat at the top for six feet or so, and about twenty-five feet high; sometimes five feet higher.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 22.

Plan of large subterranean quarry at Fortes Terres, Frepillon. _S_, _S_, _S_, represent the plan of the bases of the huge supporting pillars, and the dotted lines their union with the roof. _D_, _C_, shows the line of the section shown in the following cut, and _P_, place for preparing the plaster. Sept. 1868.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 23. Section following the line _C_, _D_, in Fig.

22.]

Presently we turn to the right, and a scene like a vast subterranean rock temple presents itself. At one end are several of us with lamps, admiring the young mushrooms budding all over the rows of beds, which, serpent-like, are long and slim, and coil away into the darkness. At about 150 feet distance there is a group of three men and a boy, each with a lamp, again dispelling the darkness from the mushroom beds, and occupied in placing small quant.i.ties of a sort of white clayey sand in the spots whence gatherings have been made a few hours previously. From both sides of this gloomy avenue the dark openings of others depart at short intervals, and the floor of all is covered with mushroom-beds, sometimes running along the pa.s.sages, sometimes across them. These beds are about twenty-two inches high and as much in diameter, and are covered with silver sand and a sort of white putty-like clay in about equal proportions. Running along in parallel lines, and disappearing from view in the darkness, one knows not what to compare them to, unless it be to barked pine trees in the hold of a s.h.i.+p.

Everywhere on the surface of these little beds small mushrooms were peering forth in quant.i.ty; as the beds are regularly gathered from every day, no very large ones are seen. They are preferred when about the size of a chestnut, and are removed root and branch, a small portion of finely sifted earth being placed in each hole, so as to level the bed as in the caves at Montrouge. If the old superst.i.tion that a mushroom never grows after being seen by human eyes were true, the trade of a champignonniste would never answer here, as the little budding individuals come within view every day during the gathering and earthing operations. The most perfect cleanliness is observed everywhere in the neighbourhood of these beds, and the whole surface of each avenue is covered by them, leaving pa.s.sages of ten inches or a foot between the beds. At the time of my visit (Sept. 29, 1868) the crops of the cultivator were reduced to their lowest ebb, and yet about 400 lbs. per day were sent to market. The average daily quant.i.ty from this cave is about 880 lbs., and sometimes that is nearly doubled.

In some parts of the cave the work of ripping out the stone by powder and simple machinery continually goes on. The arches follow the veining of the stone, so to speak; their lower parts are of hard stone, the upper ones of soft, except the very top, which is again hard. There is but a slight crust of stone above the apex of each arch, and above that the earth and trees.

It may be supposed that the profits from such an extensive culture are great; and so they are, but the expense is great also. The proprietor informed me that culture on a more limited scale than he pursued last year at Mery gave the best return in proportion to expense, the care and supervision required by so many miles of beds being too great.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 24. Extracting the stone in subterranean quarries.]

All the manure employed is brought from Paris by rail, as the place is twenty-five miles from that city by road. In the first place, so much per month is paid in Paris for the manure of each horse; then it has to be carted to the railway station and loaded in the waggons; next it is brought to the station of Auvers, and afterwards carted a couple of miles to the quarries, paying a toll for a bridge over the Oise on the way. That surely is difficulty enough for a cultivator to begin with!

Then it is placed in great flat heaps a yard deep by about thirty long and ten wide, not far removed from the mouth of the cave, and here it is prepared, turned over and well mixed three times, and as a rule watered twice. About five or six weeks are occupied in the preparation, long manure requiring more time than short. The watering is not usually done regularly over the ma.s.s, but chiefly where it is dry and overheated.

Every day manure is brought from Paris; every day new beds are made and old ones cleared out--the spent manure being used for garden purposes, particularly in surfacing or mulching, so as to prevent over-radiation from the ground in summer. The chief advantage the cultivator here has is the facility of taking his manure or anything else in or out in carts, as easily as if the beds were made in the open air. Near Paris, on the contrary, everything has to be sent up and down through shafts like those of an old well, and the men have to creep up and down a rough pole like mice. Many men are employed in the culture, the daily examination of sixteen miles of beds being a considerable item in itself. Here and there a barrier in the form of straw nailed between laths may be seen blocking up the great arch to a height of six feet or so. This is to prevent currents of air wandering about through the vast pa.s.sages.

The mode of preparing the sp.a.w.n here is entirely different to ours. They prefer virgin sp.a.w.n--that is to say, sp.a.w.n found naturally in a heap of manure. But as this material cannot be obtained in sufficient quant.i.ty to meet the wants of such extensive growers, they put a small portion of it into a mushroom-bed to spread, and instead of allowing this bed to produce mushrooms, it is all used as sp.a.w.n, and is valued more than any other. Of course abundance of sp.a.w.n occurs in the old beds, but it is never used directly. It is, however, frequently employed to sp.a.w.n a small bed when virgin sp.a.w.n cannot be obtained. In this case the small bed devoted to the propagation of sp.a.w.n is placed in the open air, and covered with straw, and as soon as it is permeated with the sp.a.w.n it is carried into the caves and used. As the making and sp.a.w.ning of beds is a process continually going on, a bed of this sort must be ready at all times. It is never made into bricks as with us, but simply spread through short, partly-decomposed, manure.[A]

[A] Mr. Speed, superintendent of the gardens at Chatsworth, has recently prepared his own sp.a.w.n, as described on p. 73, and with perfect success.

I was informed that coal-mines are not adapted for growing mushrooms, and the smallest particle of iron in the beds of manure is avoided by the sp.a.w.n, a circle around it remaining inert. It is said to be the same with coal. If an evil-disposed workman wishes to injure his employer, he has only to slip along by the beds with a pocketful of rusty old nails, and insert one here and there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 25. View in old subterranean quarries devoted to mushroom culture, and in the occupation of M. Renaudot. Sept. 29, 1868.]

The beds remain in good bearing generally about two months, but sometimes last twice and three times as long. A useful contrivance for facilitating the watering of the beds has lately been invented; it consists of a portable water-cistern to be strapped to the back and fitted with a rose and tubing, so that a workman may carry a larger quant.i.ty of water, and apply it more regularly and gently than with the old-fas.h.i.+oned watering-pots--while one hand is left free to carry the lamp. An iron frame has also been invented, in which the bed is first compressed and shaped, the frame being then reversed and the bed placed in position. Another invention for earthing the beds over as soon as the sp.a.w.n has taken will soon be in operation if not already so. As on an average 2500 yards of beds are made every month, simple mechanical contrivances to facilitate the operation will prove of the greatest advantage to the cultivator.

In addition to the caves in the localities above alluded to there are other places near Paris where the culture is carried on--notably at Moulin de la Roche, Sous Bicetre, near St. Germaine, and also at Bagneux. The equability of temperature in the caves renders the culture of the mushroom possible at all seasons; but the best crops are gathered in winter, and consequently that is the best time to see them. I, however, saw abundant crops in the hottest part of the very hot season of 1868. These mushroom caves are under Government supervision, and are regularly inspected like any other mines in which work is going on. As regards the depth at which this culture is practised, it usually varies from twenty to one hundred feet, sometimes reaching one hundred and fifty and one hundred and sixty feet from the surface of the earth. They are so large that sometimes people are lost in them. In one instance the proprietor of a large cave went astray, and it was three days before he was discovered, although soldiers and volunteers in abundance were sent down. Is it possible that in a great mining and excavating country like ours we cannot establish the same kind of industry?

CHAPTER VII.

CULTURE ON PREPARED BEDS IN THE OPEN AIR IN GARDENS AND FIELDS.

MUSHROOMS may be grown with ease in the open air in gardens; and this is a phase of the culture with which gardeners are not by any means sufficiently conversant. In fact, mushroom-culture in the open air in private gardens may be said not to exist at present, so very rarely is it seen.

In a little pamphlet on mushroom-growing that has lately appeared I find it stated that mushrooms may be grown out of doors "in summer," but nothing about them being grown in the open air in winter. The Paris growers never attempt their culture in summer: the London ones very rarely. It is in winter that their cultivation is carried on in full vigour in the open air. Abundant crops are grown in the open air by the market-gardeners of London and Paris. From their beds mushrooms are gathered in quant.i.ties in mid-winter as well as in autumn. The Paris market-gardener does not attempt the culture in mid-summer, and does not think it practicable; but in the hot summer of 1868, and in the midst of the heats of July, I found about half an acre of ground at Brompton covered with mushroom-beds bearing well.

The following ill.u.s.tration is from a sketch taken in Nov. 1869, in market-garden fields, between Kensington and Brompton. The beds, about three and a half feet high and the same in width at the base, are covered with the long straw or litter taken from the stable manure. Over that is placed old bast mats, or any like materials, to keep the litter in its place, and throw off the rain; the mats being kept in place by tiles, bricks, old boards, or any like objects that may be at hand. This is well shown in my ill.u.s.tration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 26. Mushroom-beds in market-gardens at Earl's Court, Kensington. November, 1869.]

The manure employed is that brought from the London stables, the longer litter being shaken out and put on one side to cover the beds. No care whatever is taken in the preparation of the manure; it is usually made into beds soon after it is brought home and before it is allowed to heat, and then the beds are made in the form of potato-pits and beaten very firm. The beds are sp.a.w.ned when at about a temperature of eighty degrees, the pieces of sp.a.w.n being placed about a foot or so apart, and it is then immediately earthed, the ordinary soil being used, and the bed covered to a thickness of a couple of inches. The success attained by the market-gardeners of both London and Paris, with the ordinary soil of the place in which the beds may be made, well proves the absurdity of seeking for any particular kind of soil for covering mushroom-beds. Beds made in this way in the autumn and winter months, and covered with a thick layer of litter and mats, seldom require any watering. The culture is not usually attempted in summer; the heat acting upon the littery covering giving rise to insects which destroy the mushrooms; but with care their culture is quite practicable at that season; in proof of which I may say that during the last week of July, 1868, I saw them gathered freely in a market-garden just beside the Gloucester Road Station of the Metropolitan Railway, where by using a coating of litter about a foot thick, and over that a layer of mats, it was possible to procure them in good condition throughout the hottest summer within memory. There are many acres of ground covered with beds made thus in the market-gardens round London.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 27. Uncovered end of mushroom-bed in Paris market-garden. January, 1867.]

We will next turn to the culture of the mushroom in the open air near Paris. In old times the market-gardeners there used to grow it amongst their ordinary crops with great profit, but since the champignonnistes cultivate it under no danger from cold in the caves, the market-gardeners, who used to raise it to a great extent in the open air, do so now in a less degree. They begin with the preparation of the manure, and collect that of the horse for a month or six weeks before they make the beds; this they prepare in some firm spot of the market-garden, and take from it all rubbish, particles of wood, and miscellaneous matters; for, say they, the sp.a.w.n is not fond of these bodies. After sorting it thus, they place it in beds two feet thick, or a little more, pressing it with the fork. When this is done the ma.s.s or bed is well stamped, then thoroughly watered, and finally again pressed down by stamping. It is left in this state for eight or ten days, by which time it has begun to ferment, after which the bed ought to be well turned over and re-made on the same place, care being taken to place the manure that was near the sides of the first-made bed towards the centre in the turning and re-making. The ma.s.s is now left for another ten days or so, at the end of which time the manure is about in proper condition for making the beds that are to bear the mushrooms. Little ridge-shaped beds--about twenty six inches wide and the same in height--are then formed in parallel lines at a distance of twenty inches one from the other.

In a market-garden they may stretch over a considerable extent, their length being determined by the wants of the grower. The beds once made of a firm, close-fitting texture, the manure soon begins to warm again, but does not become unwholesomely hot for the spread of the sp.a.w.n. When the beds have been made some days, the cultivator sp.a.w.ns them, having of course ascertained beforehand that the heat is genial and suitable.

Generally the sp.a.w.n is inserted within a few inches of the base, and at about thirteen inches apart in the line. Some cultivators insert two lines, the second about seven inches above the first. In doing so, it would of course be well to make the holes for the sp.a.w.n in an alternate manner. The sp.a.w.n is inserted in flakes about the size of three fingers, and then the manure is closed in over, and pressed firmly around it. This done, the beds are covered with about six inches of clean litter. Ten or twelve days afterwards the growers visit the beds, to see if the sp.a.w.n has taken well. When they see the white filaments spreading in the bed they know that the sp.a.w.n has taken; if not, they take away the sp.a.w.n they suppose to be bad and replace it with better.

But, using good sp.a.w.n, and being practised hands at the work, they rarely fail in this particular; and when the sp.a.w.n is seen spreading well through the bed, then, and not before, they cover the beds with fresh sweet soil to the depth of about an inch or so. For cover, the little pathway between the beds is simply loosened up, and the rich soil of the market-garden applied equably, firmly, and smoothly with a shovel. With these open-air beds they succeed in getting mushrooms in winter. A covering of abundance of litter is put on immediately after the beds are earthed, and kept there as a protection. They have not long to wait till the beds are in full bearing, and when they are in that state it is thought better to examine and gather from them every second day, or even every day where there are many beds. And thus they grow excellent mushrooms, and in great quant.i.ty, all the further attention required being to renew the covering when it gets rotten, and an occasional watering in a very dry season.

Of course this kind of cultivation is perfectly practicable in private gardens--where, however, I have not yet seen it carried out. Where there is a mushroom-house or empty shed in which mushrooms may be grown, there would be less occasion to pursue it, but there are many places in which no such conveniences exist. In any case it is desirable that gardeners generally should know to what a large extent this phase of the culture is pursued round London and Paris, and how simply it is done. Instead of mats, it would be an improvement to cover the beds with tarpaulin or some other cheap material that would keep out the wet.

CHAPTER VIII.

CULTURE IN GARDENS, ETC., WITH OTHER CROPS IN THE OPEN AIR.

THIS is a phase of culture which may be pursued to great advantage in every private garden, almost without cost and attention. The low ridge-like hotbeds, for example, made for both long and short p.r.i.c.kly cuc.u.mbers, gourds, marrows, &c., are admirably suited for growing a crop of mushrooms under the leaves of the subjects for which they were made.