90 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



and ragouts. As soon as my attention had been called to the bed 

 by a paragraph appearing in a local newspaper, I communicated 

 with Mr. Maskell and he kindly showed me the bed, told me the 

 details of its origin, and gave me a basketful of its products. 



The nutrient substratum of the bed consisted of a mixture of 

 one load of horse manure and one load of cow manure. This 

 mixture, in the spring of 1909, was placed in the garden so as to 

 fill up a hollow in the ground and form a sloping bank. The mass 

 of manure so deposited was 30 feet long, 6 feet wide, and had a 

 maximum depth of 4 feet. The bed, after having thus been made, 

 was covered with a layer of black garden soil 16 inches deep. 

 The top of the bed was kept free from weeds. 



The spawn with which the bed was planted originated in 

 England and was brought to Winnipeg by a gardener, along with 

 a few bulbs, etc., from a garden attached to a large country house 

 in Hertfordshire. The gardener told Mr. Maskell that he had grown 

 the fungus for years and was used to supplying the " champillions " 

 to the house for use in the kitchen ; and he gave Mr. Maskell a 

 lump of the spawn which was just large enough to fill the palm 

 of his hand. A short time after the bed had been made, Mr. 

 Maskell broke up his lump of spawn into about twelve pieces and 

 then spawned the bed with them by setting them at intervals, 

 3-4 inches deep, in the manure under the layer of soil. 



The bed which, as we have seen, was spawned in the spring 

 of 1909, yielded nothing in the autumn of 1909, but began to bear 

 in the summer of 1910. In the spring of 1911, it was thoroughly 

 turned with the spade. This turning mixed the soil and manure, 

 and spread the mycelium, which had developed only around the 

 original pieces of spawn, throughout the bed. In the autumn 

 of 1911 there was a second crop. In the spring of 1912 and also 

 of 1913 the upper part of the bed was dug over again, and further 

 crops of fruit-bodies were obtained in the late summer and autumn 

 of both these years. Therefore, up to the time I saw it, the bed 

 had borne fruit-bodies for four successive years, 1910-1913 in- 

 clusive. Mr. Maskell assured me that the crops had increased 

 in vigour with each successive year. 



I visited the bed on October 11, 1913. In this year the bed had 



