MUSHROOM SPAWN. 219 



fresh brick material. A mild hotbed is then made, upon 

 which the bricks are stacked and covered with litter to 

 hold the heat. If kept at about CO degrees, the myce- 

 lium will soon run through the bricks ; as soon as the 

 white threads have run through the mass, and before 

 the tubercles have formed, the bricks should be taken 

 out and dried. 



The French spawn (Fig. 80) is prepared by treat- 

 ing fresh horse manure in about the same way as if for 

 a mushroom bed, except that chopped litter is used 

 instead of loam. This may be spread in a layer about 

 three inches deep, and after scattering over it some good 



FIG. 80. FRENCH SPAWN. 



spawn, it should be pounded down; two or three more 

 layers of manure may then be added, with spawn upon 

 each, and the bed then covered with loam to the depth 

 of three or four inches. The bed should be kept rather 

 dry, and at the end of about six or eight weeks the 

 spawn will have run through the bed. This stage should 

 be carefully looked for, and when reached the bed should 

 be broken up and carefully dried. The French spawn 

 will go about twice as far as the English in spawning 

 the bed, but the mushrooms, as a rule, are not more than 

 two-thirds as large, and the number is also considerably 

 smaller. 



