GROWING MUSHROOMS IN MUSHROOM HOUSES.
[Illustration: FIG. 7. MUSHROOM HOUSE BUILT AGAINST A NORTH-FACING
WALL.]
A mushroom house is a building erected purposely for mushroom culture.
It may be wholly or partly above ground, and built of wood, brick, or
stone, and extend to any desired dimensions. But a few general
principles should be borne in mind. Mushrooms in houses are a winter and
not a summer crop, and they are impatient of sudden changes of
temperature and of a hot or arid atmosphere. Therefore, build the houses
where they will be warm and well-sheltered in winter, so as to get the
advantage of the natural warmth, and spare the artificial heat. They
should be entered from an adjoining building, or through a porch on the
south side, so as to guard against cold draughts or blasts in winter
when the door would be opened in going into or coming out of the house.
At the same time, do not lose sight of convenience in handling the
manure, either in bringing it into the house or taking it out, and with
this in view it may be necessary to have a door opening to the outside.
All outside doors should be double and securely packed around in winter.
Side window ventilators are not necessary, at the same time they are
useful in the early part of the season and in summer time; they should
be double and tightly packed in winter. The walls, if made of brick,
should be hollow, if of wood, double; indeed, walls built as if for an
ice house are the very best for a mushroom house, and should be banked
with earth, tree leaves, or strawy manure in winter, to help keep the
interior of the house a little warmer.
[Illustration: FIG. 8. SECTION OF MRS. C. J. OSBORNE'S MUSHROOM HOUSE.]
The floor should be perfectly dry; that is, so well drained that water
will not stand upon it, but it is immaterial whether the floor is an
ordinary earthen one or of wood or cement.
[Illustration: FIG. 9. GROUND PLAN OF MRS. OSBORNE'S MUSHROOM HOUSE.]
The roof should be double and always sloping,--never flat. The hoar
frost that appears in severe weather inside a single roof is likely to
melt as the heat of the day increases, and this cold drip falling upon
the beds below is very prejudicial to the mushroom crop. A double roof
saves the beds from this drip, and it also renders the house warmer, and
less fire is needed to maintain the requisite temperature. One might
think that a single roof like that of a dwelling house, and then a flat
ceiling under it, would be equivalent to a double sloping roof, but it
is not. The moisture arising from the interior of the house condenses
upon the flat ceiling, and the water, having no way of running off,
drips down upon the beds. With a sloping ceiling or inside roof the
water runs down the ceiling to the walls. A very pointed example of this
may be seen in Mrs. C. J. Osborne's excellent mushroom house at
Mamaroneck, N. Y. It had been built in the most substantial manner, with
a sloping roof and a flat ceiling under the roof, but so much annoyance
was caused by the drip falling from it upon the beds below that her
gardener had the flat ceiling removed and a sloping one built instead,
and now it works splendidly, and a few months ago I saw as fine a crop
of mushrooms in that house as one could wish to look at.
The interior arrangement of the mushroom house may resemble that of the
mushroom cellar. Beds may be made alongside of the walls and, if there
is room, also along the middle of the house, and shelves erected in the
same way as in the cellar. But in the case of cold, thin outside walls,
the shelf-beds should not be built close against them, but instead boxed
off about two inches from the walls, so as to remove the beds from the
chilling touch of the wall in winter. Economy may suggest the
advisability of high mushroom houses, so that one may be able to build
one shelf above another, until the shelves are two, three, or four deep.
But this is a mistake. The artificial heat required to maintain a
temperature of 55° in midwinter in a house built high above ground would
be too parching and unsteady for the good of the mushrooms; besides, a
second shelf is inconvenient enough, and when it comes to a third or a
fourth the inconvenience would be too great, and overreach any advantage
hoped for in economy of space. An unheated mushroom house must be
regarded as a shed, and treated similarly, as described in the following
chapter.
In large, well appointed, private gardens, a mushroom house is
considered an almost indispensable adjunct to the glasshouse
establishment, and is generally built against the north-facing wall of a
greenhouse. In this way it gets the benefit of the warm wall, and may be
easily heated by introducing one or two hot-water pipes from the
greenhouse system; besides, in winter the house may be entered from the
glass house or adjacent shed, and in this way be exempted from the
inclement breath of the frosty air that would be admitted in opening the
outside door.
[Illustration: FIG. 10. INTERIOR VIEW OF MR. S. HENSHAW'S MUSHROOM
HOUSE.]
=Mr. Samuel Henshaw's Mushroom House.=--Mr. Henshaw has raised
mushrooms several years at his place on Staten Island. His mushroom
house is nine feet wide and sixty feet long. One side is a brick wall
and the other is double boarded. The roof is of tin, in which there are
three sashes each two by five feet, supplying ample light. At each end
is a door giving convenient access to the interior, for carrying in and
removing material without disturbing the bearing beds. In winter the
roof is covered with a coating of salt hay, to preserve an equable
temperature and prevent the moisture from condensing on the ceiling and
falling in drops on the beds. The floor is of earth, which, when well
drained, he thinks preferable to either brick or lumber. The floor is
entirely covered with beds, no shelves or walks being used. This makes
it necessary to step on the beds, but as no covering is employed it is
always easy to avoid stepping on the clusters of young mushrooms, and so
long as they are left uninjured the bed is seldom, if ever, impaired by
the compacting effect of the treading. In order to maintain a necessary
winter temperature of 60° a four-inch hot-water pipe extends the whole
length of the house about two feet from the floor. On the other side of
the brick wall is a greenhouse which, by keeping the wall warm, helps to
keep the mushroom house warm. Mr. Henshaw divides this house into three
equal beds. The part at the further end of the house is made up in the
fall and comes into bearing in December; the middle part a month later
to come in a month later, and the near end still a month later, to
follow as another succession. Then, if need be, and he wishes to renew
the bed at the further end of the house, he clears it out and supplies
fresh material for the new bed.