180 Mushroom-Culture. [Sess. . : 
very best soil, which in a district such as this is not a difficult — 
matter. Before using it we have it thoroughly broken up and 
disintegrated, so as to be free from lumps and all foreign 
matter. It is then carefully put on by hand and a coating of 
about 24 inches applied. The bed is now completed and 
awaits developments. 
I need hardly refer here to the common idea that 
mushrooms grow up in a night. This idea is erroneous, as 
under the most favourable circumstances they take from a 
month to six weeks to mature. The heat of the manure 
begins to work on the spawn, and gradually the mycelium, 
which is seen as a white, streaky matter in the spawn when 
first placed on the beds, begins to soften, and appears by-and- 
by as a thick viscous substance, which creeps all over the beds 
under the soil, and in course of time finds its way up through 
the covering of earth, by an enormous latent force bursting the 
soil, which is very firmly packed. Small dots, not larger than 
a pin-point, then appear, and from that time onward very 
rapid progress ismade. Daily a great difference is seen, until 
in about a fortnight—sometimes only a week—mushrooms 
ready for the market are obtained. 
It is not a necessity to the grower that he should have a 
knowledge of the life-history of the mushroom. What the 
spawn is botanists hardly know yet. We can see the spores 
through the microscope, but cannot tell their history. Suffi- 
cient for us to know where to procure good spawn, and 
experience soon teaches us how to get the best results 
from it. 
It is a peculiar fact that, although the mushroom throws off 
innumerable spores, yet commercially they are not adopted as 
the foundation in making spawn. The spawn as used by 
makers is found in mill-tracks, riding-schools, in pastures—in 
fact, wherever horse-manure is found in a dry state; and in 
its midst there is found an article which is converted into a very 
valuable property. A small piece of virgin spawn is worth a 
large sum of money. When the spawn is found the manu- 
facturer takes a very small quantity of it and mixes it 
thoroughly in a mass of horse- and cow-dung and road- 
scrapings. When it is thus distributed over the whole mass 
