Part 3 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 19. Newly-made bed against wall of cave.]
The champignonniste pointed with pride to the way in which the flakes of sp.a.w.n had begun to spread through the little beds, and pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sages, 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 pa.s.sages are not so large as those placed in the open s.p.a.ces. 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 pa.s.sages, winding always between the two little narrow beds against the wall on each side, and pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sage as dark as ink, and find ourselves between two lines of beds in full bearing, the beautiful white b.u.t.ton-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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 20. View in mushroom-cave.]
A moment more and we are in an open s.p.a.ce, 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 superst.i.tious cause. Frequently the mushrooms grow in bunches or ”rocks,” as they are called, and in such cases those that compose the little ma.s.s are lifted all together.
The sides of one bed here had been almost stripped by the taking away of such bunches, and it is worthy of note that they are not only taken out, root and all, when being gathered, but the very spot in which they grew is sc.r.a.ped out, so as to get rid of every trace of the old bunch, and the s.p.a.ce is covered with a little earth from the bottom of the heap. It is the habit to do this in every case, and when the gatherer leaves a small hole from which he has pulled even a solitary mushroom, he fills it with some of the white earth from the base, no doubt intending to gather other mushrooms from the same spots before many weeks are over.
The ”b.u.t.tons” look very white, and are apparently of prime quality. The absence of all littery coverings and dust, and the daily gatherings, secure them in what we may term perfect condition. I visited this cave on the 6th of July, 1868, and doubt very much if at that season a more remarkable crop of mushrooms could be anywhere found than was presented in this subterranean chamber--a mere speck in the s.p.a.ce devoted to mushroom culture by one individual.
When I state that there are six or seven miles run of mushroom-beds in the ramifications of this cave, and that the owner is but one of a large cla.s.s who devote themselves to mushroom culture, the reader will have some opportunity of judging of the extent to which it is carried on about Paris. These caves not only supply the wants of the city above them, but those of England and other countries also, large quant.i.ties of preserved mushrooms being exported, one house alone sending to our own country no less than 14,000 boxes annually. There were some traces of the teeth of rats on the produce, and it need not be said that these enemies are not agreeable in such a place; but they did not seem to have committed any serious ravages, and are probably only casual visitors, who take the first opportunity of obtaining more varied food than is afforded them by these caves. To traverse the pa.s.sages any further is needless--there is nothing to be seen but a repet.i.tion of the culture above described, every available inch of the cave being occupied. We again find our way to the bottom of the shaft, carefully mount the rather shaky pole one at a time, and again stand in the hot sun in the midst of the ripe wheat.
In traversing the fields two things relating to mushroom culture are to be observed--heaps of white gritty earth, sifted from the _debris_ of the white stone, and large heaps of stable manure acc.u.mulated for mushroom growing, and undergoing preparation for it. That preparation is different from what we are accustomed to give it. It is ordinary stable manure, or very short stuff, not droppings, and is thrown into heaps four or five feet high, and perhaps thirty feet wide. The men were employed turning this over, the ma.s.s being afterwards stamped down with their feet, a water-cart and pots being used to thoroughly water the manure where it is dry and whitish.
As many will feel an interest in the cave culture of the mushroom, and perhaps wish to see it for themselves, I may state that it is difficult to obtain permission to visit the caves, and many persons would not like the look of the ”ladder” which affords an entrance. Even with a well-known Parisian horticulturist I had some difficulty in entering them. I was informed that one champignonniste in the same neighbourhood demands the exorbitant price of twenty francs for a visit to his cave.
As the visit is the work of some little time, no visitor should put the cultivators to this trouble without offering some slight recompense--say not less than five francs. The above cave is but a sample of many in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris.
We will next visit a mushroom-cave of another type at some little distance from that city. It is situated near Frepillon, Mery-sur-Oise--a place which may be reached in an hour or so by the Chemin de fer du Nord, pa.s.sing by Enghien, the valley of Montmorency and Pontoise, and alighting at Auvers. There are vast quarries in the neighbourhood, both for building-stone and the plaster so largely used in Paris. The materials are not quarried in the ordinary way by opening up the ground, nor by the method employed at Montrouge and elsewhere in the suburbs of Paris, but so that the interior of the earth looks like a vast gloomy cathedral. In 1867 the mushroom culture was in full force at Mery, and as many as 3000 lbs. a day were sometimes sent from thence to the Paris market; but the mushroom is a thing of peculiar taste, and these quarries are now empty--cleaned out and left to rest. After a time the great quarries seem to become tired of their occupants, or the mushrooms dislike the air; the quarries are then well cleaned out, the very soil where the beds rested being sc.r.a.ped away, and the place left to recruit itself for a year or two. In 1867 M. Renaudot had the extraordinary length of over twenty-one miles of mushroom-beds in one great cave at Mery; last year there were sixteen miles in a cave at Frepillon. This is a clean, lonely village, just touching on the gigantic cemetery which M. Haussmann projected.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 21. Entrance to large subterranean quarry.]
The distant view of the entrance to the quarries has much the appearance of an English chalk-pit. But there is a great rude arch cut into the rock, and into this we enter, meeting presently a waggon coming forth with a load of stones, the waggoner with lamp in hand. To the visitor who has seen the mushroom caves near Paris, where it is sometimes necessary to stoop very low to avoid knocking one's head against the roof rocks, the surprise is great on getting a little way in. At least it is so soon as one can see; the darkness is so profound that a few candles or lamps merely make it more visible. The tunnel we traverse is nearly regularly arched, masonry being used here and there, so as to render the support secure and somewhat symmetrical, the arches being flat at the top for six feet or so, and about twenty-five feet high; sometimes five feet higher.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 22.
Plan of large subterranean quarry at Fortes Terres, Frepillon. _S_, _S_, _S_, represent the plan of the bases of the huge supporting pillars, and the dotted lines their union with the roof. _D_, _C_, shows the line of the section shown in the following cut, and _P_, place for preparing the plaster. Sept. 1868.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 23. Section following the line _C_, _D_, in Fig.
22.]
Presently we turn to the right, and a scene like a vast subterranean rock temple presents itself. At one end are several of us with lamps, admiring the young mushrooms budding all over the rows of beds, which, serpent-like, are long and slim, and coil away into the darkness. At about 150 feet distance there is a group of three men and a boy, each with a lamp, again dispelling the darkness from the mushroom beds, and occupied in placing small quant.i.ties of a sort of white clayey sand in the spots whence gatherings have been made a few hours previously. From both sides of this gloomy avenue the dark openings of others depart at short intervals, and the floor of all is covered with mushroom-beds, sometimes running along the pa.s.sages, sometimes across them. These beds are about twenty-two inches high and as much in diameter, and are covered with silver sand and a sort of white putty-like clay in about equal proportions. Running along in parallel lines, and disappearing from view in the darkness, one knows not what to compare them to, unless it be to barked pine trees in the hold of a s.h.i.+p.
Everywhere on the surface of these little beds small mushrooms were peering forth in quant.i.ty; as the beds are regularly gathered from every day, no very large ones are seen. They are preferred when about the size of a chestnut, and are removed root and branch, a small portion of finely sifted earth being placed in each hole, so as to level the bed as in the caves at Montrouge. If the old superst.i.tion that a mushroom never grows after being seen by human eyes were true, the trade of a champignonniste would never answer here, as the little budding individuals come within view every day during the gathering and earthing operations. The most perfect cleanliness is observed everywhere in the neighbourhood of these beds, and the whole surface of each avenue is covered by them, leaving pa.s.sages of ten inches or a foot between the beds. At the time of my visit (Sept. 29, 1868) the crops of the cultivator were reduced to their lowest ebb, and yet about 400 lbs. per day were sent to market. The average daily quant.i.ty from this cave is about 880 lbs., and sometimes that is nearly doubled.
In some parts of the cave the work of ripping out the stone by powder and simple machinery continually goes on. The arches follow the veining of the stone, so to speak; their lower parts are of hard stone, the upper ones of soft, except the very top, which is again hard. There is but a slight crust of stone above the apex of each arch, and above that the earth and trees.
It may be supposed that the profits from such an extensive culture are great; and so they are, but the expense is great also. The proprietor informed me that culture on a more limited scale than he pursued last year at Mery gave the best return in proportion to expense, the care and supervision required by so many miles of beds being too great.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 24. Extracting the stone in subterranean quarries.]
All the manure employed is brought from Paris by rail, as the place is twenty-five miles from that city by road. In the first place, so much per month is paid in Paris for the manure of each horse; then it has to be carted to the railway station and loaded in the waggons; next it is brought to the station of Auvers, and afterwards carted a couple of miles to the quarries, paying a toll for a bridge over the Oise on the way. That surely is difficulty enough for a cultivator to begin with!