unfastening any of the multitude of small buttons that may be growing
around them.

The advantages of pulling over cutting are several: It benefits the bed.
If we cut over a mushroom and leave its stump in the ground, in a few
days decay sets in and a fluffy or spongy substance grows around the old
butt, which destroys many of the little mushrooms around it, as well as
every thread of mycelium that comes in contact with it. One should be
particular to scoop out these stumps with a knife before this condition
takes place, and go over the beds every few days to fill up the holes,
made in scooping out the old stumps, with fresh loam.

Pulled mushrooms always keep fresh longer than do those that have been
cut. In the interest of the market grower they have another advantage.
Mushrooms are bought and sold by weight, and as the stems are always
retained to the caps all are weighed together; if part of the stems had
been cut off the weight would have been reduced, and, in like
proportion, the price; but if the stems are retained entire not only are
the mushrooms benefited, but the weight, and with it the price, is also
increased.

=Gathering Field or Wild Mushrooms.=--Go in search of them in the
morning before the sunshine gets warm and they become too open or old.
If you wish to gather and preserve them in their most perfect condition
pull them up by the "roots," carefully remove any soil from them, and
then lay them orderly in the basket, the root end down; and by spreading
a stout sheet of paper over the layer, another may be arranged above it
in the same way, and so on until the basket is full. But if you are not
so particular and wish them for immediate use, or for ketchup or drying,
the common way of cutting them off and carrying them home in bulk will
answer well enough.

=Marketing Mushrooms.=--Most market growers who live immediately around
New York City sell direct, and deliver their mushrooms to hotels,
restaurants, and fancy fruiterers. But some of them, also most of those
who live at a considerable distance from the city, sell their mushrooms
through commission merchants in New York; they, in turn, sell in
quantities to suit customers.

Mushrooms are sold by the pound, and come into market in boxes made of
strong undressed paper. Some growers have light wooden boxes made that
hold from one to four pounds of mushrooms each, and these make
convenient and strong packages for shipping by express. They may be sent