Mushrooms can be eaten by anyone including children since they are easily digested and absorbed by the body into the bloodstream within two to three hours. They contain iron, vitamins, calcium and protein. They are especially good for pregnant mothers, and diabetic and blood pressure patients. Mushrooms have medicinal properties and are known to reduce heart, liver and blood diseases including cholesterol and stomach cancer. Mushrooms can be profitably grown using little investment. However one has to master the techniques and follow all the procedures and requirements very carefully. One does not need land to become a mushroom cultivator for one can grow mushrooms even in one's own house. Climate: Mushrooms require a temperature of 20-32o Celsius and about 35-90% humidity. They also require adequate ventilation, diffused light and semi-darkness. Too much light makes mushrooms dark in colour. If the room temperature increases above 32oC, it should be decreased by hanging wet sacks around the place. However the sacks should be first sterilized using savlon, formalin or dettol to avoid fungi or bacteria entering the room. If the temperature decreases below 20oC, then a 200W bulb (for a small room) should be lit to generate heat. Spawn: Mushrooms are grown from spawn. The colour of good spawn is milky white with a sweet smell or no smell. The spawn should be compact, white on all sides and cottony. If it is yellow, it means that the spawn is old. Any other coloured patches seen on the spawn signify contaminant fungi in the spawn. Spawn should be maximum 18 to 20 days old. To prepare mother spawn, one needs good quality jowar, wheat or gram. The seed should be of uniform size, good quality, free from pests and diseases and dry. The grain should be washed, all hollow grains should be removed and the remaining boiled for one hour so that it is half cooked. While boiling some formalin or savlon should be added to disinfect the grain. The grain is then spread on a disinfected muslin cloth and mixed with calcium carbonate. It is then filled into bottles which are tightly corked using nonabsorbent cotton. The bottles are then put into a pressure cooker. The inoculation or the culture room for tissue culture was also shown to us. This room should be about 2.25 m in height and 1.25 m in length. Two tubes i.e. an ultra-violet tube and a normal tube light are used. A spirit lamp is also used. One can produce up to six generations from one bottle of mother spawn with the help of tissue culture. After six generations the strength of the spawn decreases and the yield of the mushrooms will be less. Substratum: Paddy straw is the main substratum used for growing mushrooms-it contains cellulose and lignin, both of which are necessary for the growth of mushrooms. However many other kinds of substrata are also used, for example, saw dust, sacks, banana leaves, dry mango leaves, coconut leaves, sugarcane, wild grass, rice husk, etc.