CULTURE IN PASTURES, ETC. 91 



After selecting the position in which we wish to 

 propagate mushrooms, and no moderately dry pasture- 

 land need be without them, the next thing to consider 

 is the providing of the spawn. Hitherto this has 

 probably been the great difficulty. When nearly 20/. 

 worth of mushroom spawn was annually used in the 

 mushroom-houses of a large garden, the expense neces- 

 sary to spawn a large pasture might well alarm the 

 richest of mushroom -loving landholders; but there is not 

 the slightest occasion for purchasing the spawn for this 

 purpose. Every farmer and country gentleman can make it 

 as easily as, or more easily than, the spawn- manufacturer, 

 without any expense or inconvenience, the essential thing 

 being a quantity of rather short stable-manure. 



Where this is gathered in large heaps it will be easy to 

 obtain the requisite materials at once. Where it is not so, 

 a few loads of stable manure unmixed with long straw may 

 be thrown together in the open air and prepared for the 

 purpose. There is no occasion to place it in a shed of any 

 kind, though if there be one at hand so much the better. 

 If prepared in the open air it should be on a dry place ; 

 the materials should be subjected to exactly the same 

 preparation as when used for making a mushroom -bed, 

 before described. They should be made into a potato- 

 pit-shaped bed, and spawned in the usual manner. For 

 this spawning it is of course necessary to obtain a little 

 spawn, whether home-made or bought from the seeds- 



