Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/151

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Mushroom-growing, as carried on in some parts of France, is so extraordinary as to deserve mention. In the vicinity of Paris there are extensive caves formed by stone-quarries long since abandoned. In these caves, sixty or seventy feet underground, and extending great distances, the temperature is equal and the air moist, and here mushroom-beds are made, and immense quantities of the plant are grown for home and foreign markets. An idea of the magnitude of the business may be formed when it is known that one proprietor has twenty-one miles of beds, another sixteen, another seven, and so on through a long list. In the ramifications of the cave of Montrouge (Fig. 11), just outside the fortifications of Paris, there are six or seven miles' run of mushroom-beds. It is entered through a circular opening, like the mouth of a well, and the only mode of descent is down a shaky pole, furnished with cross-bars, the base of which rests in darkness sixty feet below.

A gentleman who visited this cave remarks: