MUSHROOMS:
How to Grow Them.
A PRACTICAL TREATISE
ON
Mushroom Culture for Profit and Pleasure.
BY
WILLIAM FALCONER.
ILLUSTRATED.
NEW YORK,
ORANGE JUDD CO.
1892.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by the
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PREFACE
Mushrooms and their extensive and profitable culture should concernevery one. For home consumption they are a healthful and grateful food,and for market, when successfully grown, they become a most profitablecrop. We can have in America the best market in the world for freshmushrooms; the demand for them is increasing, and the supply has alwaysbeen inadequate. The price for them here is more than double that paidin any other country, and we have no fear of foreign competition, forall attempts, so far, to import fresh mushrooms from Europe have beenunsuccessful.
In the most prosperous and progressive of all countries, with apopulation of nearly seventy millions of people alert to everyprofitable, legitimate business, mushroom-growing, one of the simplestand most remunerative of industries, is almost unknown. The marketgrower already engaged in growing mushrooms appreciates his situationand zealously guards his methods of cultivation from the public. Thisonly incites interest and inquisitiveness, and the people are becomingalive to the fact that there is money in mushrooms and an earnest demandhas been created for information about growing them.
The raising of mushrooms is within the reach of nearly every one. Goodmaterials to work with and careful attention to all practical detailsshould give good returns. The industry is one in which women andchildren can take part as well as men. It furnishes indoor employment inwinter, and there is very little hard labor attached to it, while it canbe made subsidiary to almost any other business, and even a recreationas well as a source of profit.
In this book the endeavor has been, even at the risk of repetition, tomake the best methods as plain as possible. The facts herein presentedare the results of my own practical experience and observation, togetherwith those obtained by extensive reading, travel and correspondence.
To Mr. Charles A. Dana, the proprietor of the Dosoris mushroom cellarsand estate, I am greatly indebted for opportunities to prepare thisbook. For the past eight years everything has been unstintedly placed atmy disposal by him to grow mushrooms in every way I wished, and toexperiment to my heart's content.
To Mr. William Robinson, editor of The Garden, London, I am especiallyindebted for many courtesies—permission to quote from The Garden,"Parks and Gardens of Paris," and his other works, and to illustrate thechapters in this book on Mushroom-growing in the London market gardensand the Paris caves, with the original beautiful plates from his ownbooks.
The recipes given in the chapter on Cooking Mushrooms, except thoseprepared for this work by Mrs. Ammersley, although based on the onesgiven by Mr. Robinson, have been considerably modified by me andrepeatedly used in my own family.
My thanks are also due to Mr. John F. Barter, of London, the largestgrower of mushrooms in England, for information given me regarding hissystem of cultivation; to Mr. John G. Gardner, of Jobstown, N. J., oneof the most noted growers for market in this country, for facilitiesallowed me to examine his method of raising mushrooms; and to Messrs. A.H. Withington, Samuel Henshaw, George Grant, John Cullen, and