at Britain. The English market gardeners find their
moist, equable climate favorable to outdoor culture, and abundant crops
are grown by them in the open air, chiefly, however, for the home
market.

That mushroom growing can be made a lucrative business is shown by the
experience of a well-known English grower, Mr. J. F. Barter, who on one
acre of ground has produced in the open air, without the aid of glass,
an average of from ten to twelve thousand pounds of mushrooms annually;
the price obtained for them varying according to the season, but
averaging ten pence, or twenty cents, per pound for the whole year. The
value of twelve thousand pounds of mushrooms at ten pence per pound
would be L.500 sterling or $2,500.

For the purposes of comparison the following are quoted from the Pall
Mall Gazette, as exceptional prices realized in England for other fruits
and vegetables in recent years:

Pounds sterling per statute acre:

Very early gooseberries, 100; onions, 192; early lettuces, 100; plums,
100; potatoes, 100; strawberries, 150; black currants, 168; filberts,
200.

It will be seen that onions and filberts head the list, but the product
of an acre of mushrooms has been shown to be worth more than double that
of either filberts or onions.

In the localities specially favorable to hop growing 30 cwt. of hops to
the acre is considered exceptional, while the average price has been
quoted at 3 pounds sterling, or about one-fifth of the sum obtained from
Mr. Barter's acre of mushrooms. Three months in the year the weather
does not favor outdoor culture, and these months Mr. Barter spends in
manufacturing brick spawn, which he exports to this and other countries.
Among those who have been very successful in indoor culture are Mr.
William Robinson, editor of the "London Garden," and Mr. Horace Cox,
manager of the "Field."

In America, where mushroom culture is still comparatively in its
infancy, there have already been obtained very encouraging results by
painstaking growers. Most of the cultivation has been in the northern
and midwestern States, where the climatic conditions seemed most
favorable to indoor culture. A few figures as to the revenue obtained in
this way may be interesting to readers.

An experienced Pennsylvania grower states that from a total area of
5,500 square feet of beds, made up in two mushroom houses, he obtained a
crop of 5,000 pounds of mushrooms in one season, or about one pound to
the squa