THE CAVE CULTURE OF MUSHROOMS, NEAR PARIS.
The most extensive and successful culture of mushrooms in existence is carried on in widely-ramifying caves far beneath the surface in the vicinity of Paris. To give the reader as good an idea of it as I can we must visit one of the great “Mushroom caves” at Montrouge, just outside the fortifications of Paris, on the southern side. The surface of the ground is mostly cropped with wheat; but here and there lie, ready to be transported to Paris, blocks of white stone, which have recently been brought to the surface through coalpit-like openings. There is nothing like a “quarry,” as we understand it, to be seen; the stone is extracted as we extract coal, and with no interference whatever with the surface of the ground. We find a “champignonniste” after some trouble, and he accompanies us across some fields to the entrance of his subterranean garden. It is a circular opening like the mouth of an old well, but from it protrudes the head of a thick pole with sticks thrust through it. This pole, the base of which rests in darkness sixty feet below, is the easiest and indeed the only way by which human beings can get into the mine. I had an idea that one might enter sideways and in a more agreeable manner, but it was not so. Down the shaky pole my guide creeps, I follow, and soon reach the bottom, from which little passages radiate. A few little lamps fixed on pointed sticks are placed below, and, arming ourselves with one each, we slowly commence exploring dark, still, tortuous passages. I have heard that the first individual who commenced mushroom-growing in these catacomb-like burrowings was one who, at a particularly glorious epoch of the history of France, when a great many more brave garçons went to fight than returned from the victory, preferred, strange to say, to stay at home and hide himself rather than form a unit in “battle’s magnificently stern array.” Industrious and discreet youth! You deserve being held up as an example as much as the busy bee that improves each “shining hour.”
The passages are narrow, and occasionally we have to stoop. On each hand there are little narrow beds of half-decomposed stable manure running along the wall. These have been made quite recently, and have not yet been spawned. Presently we arrive at others in which the spawn has been placed, and is “taking” freely. The spawn in these caves is introduced into the little beds in flakes taken from an old bed, or, still better, from a heap of stable manure in which it occurs naturally. Such spawn is preferred, and considered much more valuable than that taken from old beds. Of spawn in the form of bricks, such as is used in England, there is none.
The champignonniste pointed with pride to the way in which the flakes of spawn had begun to spread through the little beds, and passed 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 passages, 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 passages are not so large as those placed in the open spaces. 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 passages, winding always between the two little narrow beds against the wall on each side, and passing 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 passage as dark as ink, and find ourselves between two lines of beds in full bearing, the beautiful white button-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.
A moment more and we are in an open space, 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 superstitious cause. Frequently the mushrooms grow in bunches or “rocks,” as they are called, and in such cases those that compose the little mass are lifted all together.