The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky

floor. The compost heap is never piled less than three feet high and never more than four feet. If it is too low it will not heat enough, if too high it will heat excessively and dry out.
    During the process of fermentation the temperature reaches 140 degrees Fahrenheit, but the most satisfactory result is obtained when a temperature of 125 degrees is constantly maintained for several days. At the end of a one-week to two-week period the pile is forked over, and the outside of the old pile becomes the center of a new pile. It is then well shaken and mixed, the dry spots watered, and the whole pile spread with two inches of fine loam to prevent too rapid heating during this period of fermentation, as well as to hold the heat when the bed is made. Every five days the mixture is forked over and new loam added. In three weeks the dark brown moist compost is ready for use.
    The cultivated mushroom, the Agaricus campestris , belongs to a group characterized by the lack of chlorophyll or green coloring matter, which together with sunlight enables higher plant life to manufacture its own food, starch. As a consequence the fungus can be grown in the absence of light, and a measure of economy is injected in the construction of the growing-shed by the lack of windows. Care must be taken, however, that the buildings be draftproof and a constant temperature of fifty-five to sixty degrees maintained. The sheds are ventilated to insure a steady supply of oxygen and the expulsion of carbonic acid gas, given off by the growing plants. Tiers of flat beds, six beds high, of compost ten inches deep and approximately two feet wide are arranged along the sides and middle of the building.
    Mycelium cultures, developed from the spores of previous crops of mushrooms, are introduced into bottles containing sterilized compost. In three weeks the bottled, impregnated manure becomes hardened; the bottle is broken and the spawn scatteringly inserted in small pieces about one inch below the surface of the bed. At this time the bed is held at a temperature of sixty or seventy degrees, and maintained at that temperature for several weeks thereafter. Within ten days or two weeks, when the spawn begins to run, or the thin tendrils of the mycelium spread, a white mouldlike growth appears. Then a casing, or shallow layer of rich pasture or garden loam, is spread over the bed. Six or ten weeks after the spawn is spread, white pinheads that develop overnight into “buttons” appear upon the surface of the compost. The mushroom is known as a button when the membrane or veil extends unbroken from the edge of the cap or pileus to the stem. As the plant matures the pileus expands in an umbrellalike manner; the veil, which in the button covered the gills beneath the cap, becomes a ragged fringe around the edge of the pileus, and a ring or annulus of veil around the stem or stipe.
    The average commercial bed produces for a period of eight months to a year. A compost impregnated with a good strain of spawn will yield one-and-a-half pounds of mushrooms to each square foot of bed surface. The retail price of the mushroom will average from thirty-five cents to one dollar a pound. The introduction of air conditioning has made possible a year-round growing season. Previous to this innovation the season extended only from May to November.
    Scientific advancement has become a two-edged sword in the mushroom industry. On the one hand it has lengthened the growing season; on the other the automobile and farm mechanization have seriously imperiled the existence of the industry’s prime requisite, manure. Mushroom growers are now hopefully turning to science’s latest advance, the use of grain spawn as a compost, to perpetuate an industry which in its growing-sheds produces a crop that ranges from 11,000,000 to 15,000,000 pounds annually.

Vermont Sugaring-Off
    ROALDUS RICHMOND
    The American journalist turned food writer Waverley Root claimed that maple syrup may be the only