174 GAEDEXING FOE PEOFIT. 



days, we had known no such word as fail, in so simple a 

 matter; but hei-e, on my first attempt, on my own re- 

 sponsibility, I was met by total failure. Every authority 

 was consulted, all the various methods tried — but with no 

 better success. In all such cases something must be 

 blamed, and I pronounced the spawn as worthless ; but 

 my good natured employer quietly suggested that this 

 could not well be, as a friend of his had abundant crops 

 growing from spawn received from the same sourc?. 

 Driven into a corner by this information, I made another 

 exploration of my "authorities," and was fortunate to 

 find in one of them a single sentence that at once showed 

 where my error had been, it was to " be careful to delay 

 the covering with mould, until ten or twelve days after the 

 bed had been spawned." Now, in all the different meth- 

 ods I had tried, I had in each invariably put in the spawn, 

 and at once put on the 2-inch covering of soil, which had 

 the effect to shut down the steam, thereby raising the tem- 

 perature in the bed to a degree to destroy the spawn, and 

 consequently to defeat my whole operations. My excuse 

 for this digression is to show the importance of what 

 might otherwise be thought unnecessary details. 



Although spawn is procurable at cheap rates in all hor- 

 ticultural stores, yet to such as desire to make it them- 

 selves, I give the following brief directions. Take equal 

 portions of horse droppings, cow dung and fresh loam, 

 mix the whole thoroughly together, as you would make 

 mortar ; then form it into cakes about the size of large 

 bricks, place these on edge, under cover, until they become 

 half dry ; then insert into each a piece of spawn half an 

 inch or so square, let the bricks remain until they are quite 



