MUSHROOM CULTURE. 137 



for another ten clays, then it is in condition to be made 

 into beds of the proper form and seeded. Sometimes 

 four to six weeks are taken in the preparation of the 

 manure, a leading object with most cultivators being to 

 have it half decomposed, completely mixed, but not wet. 



Mushroom Beds. — Possibly the best system for 

 the amateur to pursue is to prepare his manure pile 

 under cover, as in a shed or cellar, making his pile one- 

 fourth loam and three-fourths of the best stable manure 

 he can get, horse dung predominating, which should be 

 piled first, to allow it to lose its fiercest heat, the loam 

 helping to solidify the mixture. At spawning time the 

 heat in the beds should range from sixty to eighty 

 degrees, never above eighty-five. The heat of a bed 

 may be reduced by opening holes with a crowbar, forc- 

 ing it down to the very bottom. Of course the heat can 

 be taken with a thermometer. 



Spawn, as sold, may be looked upon as the seed used 

 by mushroom growers, though it is a compounded article. 

 That part of the mushroom appearing above ground, the 

 part eaten and best known to the public, is what may be 

 termed the flower and flower stem, the spores or trae 

 seed, being produced upon the gills of the flower, which, 

 under natural conditions, falling to the ground, germin- 

 ate, and produce a fine underground mat of filaments. 

 This underground growth being the true and perfect 

 plant, the edible portion, as previously remarked, being 

 the flower, or seed-bearing stem. It is not necessary 

 here to describe how the spawn is made commercially, 

 except to say that the English spawn comes in the form 

 of light, dry, brittle bricks, wdiile the French comes in 

 the form of light flakes, resembling half-dried stable 

 manure. 



In seeding a bed with English spawn, one bushel 

 should suffice for an area of one hundred square feet of 

 surface, the bricks being broken into pieces the size 



