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condition for cauliflower, lettuces, snap beans, and other crops. But as the mushroom growers who restrict
themselves entirely to mushrooms, and who, after the mushroom beds have finished bearing, have no further
use for the manure in the spent beds, are always able to dispose of it at one-half the cost price. It is excellent
for garden crops and as a topdressing for lawns, on account of its fineness and freedom from all rubbish as
sticks, stones, old bottles, old shoes, and the like, is in much demand.
CHAPTER XXI. 83
CHAPTER XXI.
MUSHROOM GROWING IN THE PARIS CAVES.
In caves and subterranean passages underneath the city of Paris and its environs, thousands of tons of
mushrooms are artificially produced every year. These underground caves and tunnels are abandoned quarries
from which white building stone and plaster have been excavated, and as the veins of stone permeated through
the bowels of the earth, 40 to 125 feet deep, so were they quarried, and the blocks brought to the surface
through vertical shafts. It is these tunnels, varying in height and width as the veins of stone varied, that are
now used for mushroom-growing. M. Lachaume, in his book, The Cave Mushroom, tells us: "In the
Department of the Seine there are 3000 quarries; those which have been abandoned and which are situated
close to Paris at Montrouge, Bagneux, Vaugirard, Méry, Châtillon, Vitry, Honilles, and St. Denis, are used by
the 250 mushroom-growers of the Department. There are several of these quarries with horizontal galleries
driven into the calcareous rock from the level of the road, which are mostly large enough to accommodate a
good sized cart, but the majority can only be entered, like many coal mines, by vertical shafts 100 to 125 feet
deep, down which everything has to pass. The laborers climb up and down a ladder, and the fresh manure is
shoveled down the shaft from above, the waste stuff and mushrooms being hauled up in baskets from beneath
by means of a windlass."
The manure used is obtained from the Paris stables and furnished by contractors, with whom the mushroom
growers make special bargains because they are very particular about the kind and quality of the manure they
use. Some of these growers use as much as 2000 to 3500 tons of manure each a year for their mushroom beds.
To the caves in the immediate neighborhood of Paris the manure is hauled out in carts, but to Méry and other
places too far distant to be within easy carting distance it is sent by rail. The mushroom growers consider that
the manure from animals that are worked hard and abundantly fed on dry, good food is the best; the droppings
from these are always dry and rich in ammonia, nitrogen and phosphates. The manure from entire horses that
are worked hard they regard as the best, and, next in value, that from mules. The manure from horses kept for
pleasure, such as carriage and riding horses, is regarded as poor, notwithstanding the high feeding of these
animals, and the manure from horses fed on grass or roots, also that of cows, as worthless. Stress is laid on the
importance of having a good deal of urine-soaked straw in the manure, and this is another reason why manure
from draught horses is preferred to that from animals kept for pleasure, as the bedding of the former is not apt
to be kept so clean as that in aristocratic stables.
The preparation of the manure is conducted near the mouth of the caves or shafts on a level, dry piece of
ground, and altogether out of doors. As soon as sufficient manure for a pile is obtained it is forked over,
thoroughly shaken up and intermixed, divested of all extraneous matter such as sticks, stones, bottles, scrap
iron, old shoes, and the like we find in city stable manure, and any dry straw is moistened with water. It is
then squared off into a heap forty inches high and trodden down to thirty inches high. In this state it is left for
about six days, when it is turned, shaken up loosely, the outside turned to the inside, and all dry parts watered;
the same shallow square form is retained, and it is again trodden down firm. In about six days more it is again
turned, shaken up, watered, squared off, and trodden as before. In about three days after this it should be fit
for use and may be turned, shaken up loosely, and dumped down the shaft into the cave and carried to the spot
where the beds are to be formed. Of course these operations must be modified according to circumstances and
the condition of the manure.
In making the beds the ground is first marked off. The first bed is made alongside of the wall, and rounded to
the front; the other beds run parallel with this and may be straight, crooked, or wavy, as the interior of the
cave may suggest. The beds are all ridge-shaped, eighteen to twenty inches wide at the base, eighteen to
twenty inches high in the middle, six inches wide at top, and the sides sloping. Pathways twelve inches wide
run between the beds. The workmen build the beds by piece-work and receive one-half cent per running foot.
A good workman can make 240 feet a day (Lachaume). The beds are built neatly and firmly and with much
nicety as regards size and proportions. But the workmen do not use a fork or any other tool in the construction
CHAPTER XXI. 84
of the beds; they lift, shake up, spread and build the manure with their naked hands and pack it firm with their
knees.
The spawn is obtained from the working beds and is what the mushroom growers there call "virgin" spawn,
though not at all what we know by that term. As a succession of beds is kept up all the year round it is an easy
matter for the growers to get their spawn at any time. The best time to get the spawn is when the young
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