How to Grow Mushrooms by William Falconer is a short illustrated account of mushroom cultivation as practiced in the late nineteenth century. Issued as Farmers’ Bulletin No. 53 in 1897, it follows the crop from spawn and bed preparation to gathering, sorting, packing, and marketing.
The bulletin focuses on cultivated mushrooms and the spaces used to grow them. Its diagrams of cellar beds and mushroom houses make it an interesting reference for readers exploring traditional protected growing, small-scale food production, and the history of market gardening.
Book details
- Title: How to Grow Mushrooms
- Author: William Falconer
- Series: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farmers’ Bulletin No. 53
- Publisher: Government Printing Office, Washington
- Publication year: 1897; cover dated March 1897
- Edition: No numbered edition is stated on the cover
- Language: English
- Format: Illustrated scanned PDF with searchable text
- Length: 21 PDF pages, including an added archive notice and the original 20-page bulletin
- File size: 1.30 MB
Spawn and places to grow
Falconer opens by explaining the relationship between the visible mushroom and the spreading mycelium. The next sections distinguish spores from the spawn used by growers of his time. Drawings show English brick spawn and French flake spawn, including the pieces prepared for planting.
The descriptions preserve a useful picture of the materials available to the period grower. They also show why the bulletin is a historical account rather than a guide to every form of present-day mushroom production: its methods center on the spawn products and manure-bed culture familiar to the author.
The section on growing locations considers cellars, barns, sheds, tunnels, pits, greenhouses, and purpose-built mushroom houses. Illustrations include beds on a cellar floor, raised shelf beds, and a cross-section of a mushroom house. Falconer discusses the need for a suitable environment rather than presenting complete darkness as the essential condition.
Preparing and managing the beds
The middle sections describe preparing manure, forming the beds, introducing spawn, applying the loam covering, and managing temperature and moisture. The sequence gives readers a clear view of how the author organized the work: the growing material is prepared before the bed is made and planted.
For readers interested in traditional growing systems, this is the most practical part of the bulletin to study. It connects the location, the bed, and its surrounding conditions instead of treating them as separate subjects. The short sections also make it easy to follow the order of operations without searching through a long textbook.
Gathering, packing, and selling the crop
Harvesting is followed by separate discussions of sorting and packing. Falconer emphasizes the condition and appearance of the crop and the importance of avoiding unnecessary handling. Photographs show baskets as received and after opening, making the packaging discussion more concrete.
The marketing section considers commission merchants, hotels, restaurants, retail stores, and private customers. Letters and prices give a snapshot of the trade in 1897. These details are useful to agricultural historians, but they should not be read as current market forecasts or a promise of commercial returns.
Other subjects in the bulletin
Brief closing sections address old or failing beds, mushroom diseases, insects and other animal pests, and summer growing. They complete the account of the crop by showing the problems that growers of the period encountered, alongside the earlier material on preparation and harvesting.
This is a cultivation bulletin, not a field guide to identifying wild edible mushrooms. Readers looking for identification material will need a separate, appropriate reference.
Who this reference is for
The bulletin suits readers interested in historic horticulture, compact growing systems, and the development of cultivated mushroom production. It complements Ardbark’s gardening collection and self-sufficiency references. Its small file size also makes it easy to keep in an offline reference collection.
About this scanned edition
The PDF includes the original cover, contents, illustrations, and period list of other bulletins. Searchable text contains recognition errors, so use the page images to check technical details. Cultivation and pest-control passages reflect 1897; some treatments are obsolete and hazardous. Use current cultivation and food-safety guidance for an actual growing project.
Read How to Grow Mushrooms
Read the illustrated historical bulletin in the 1.30 MB PDF below.
