"My reasons for writing this book are: First, that Mushroom Culture is but little practised in this country compared to the extent to which it ought to be, considering the abundance of the necessary materials... every place in which a gardener and horses are kept should be abundantly supplied with Mushrooms throughout the greater part of the year. Secondly... a simpler and fuller account of it than has yet appeared in the English language is desirable for the unpractised amateur and cultivator. Thirdly, Mushroom Culture is at present confined to a too narrow groove... if the knowledge of how easily and in how many ways they may be grown, apart from the usual mode, were sufficiently spread, it would lead to the production of many times our present supply. Fourthly, [I have] a desire to introduce to this and other countries the system of Mushroom Culture on a very large scale carried on in caverns beneath the environs of Paris, which caverns I visited in 1868."