SPAWNING THE BEDS. 97 



imum (120° or over). Where the heat in the middle of 

 the bed never reached 115°, the spawn put in when the 

 bed was made, and molded over the same day, yielded a 

 small crop of mushrooms. A bed in which the heat was 

 declining was spawned at 110° ; this bore a very good 

 crop, and at 100° and under to 65° good crops in eveiy 

 case were secured, with several days' delay in bearing in 

 the case of the lowest temperatures. But notwithstand- 

 ing these facts, my advice to all beginners in mushroom 

 growing is, wait until the heat of the bed is on the decline 

 and fallen to at least 90°, before inserting the spawn. 



Writing to me about spawning his beds, Mr. Withing- 

 ton, of New Jersey, says: "I believe a bed spawned 

 at 60° to 70°, and kept at 55° after the mushrooms 

 appear, will give better results than one spawned at a 

 higher temperature, say 90°." 



Preparing the Spawn. — If brick spawn is used cut 

 up the bricks (standard size) into ten or twelve pieces 

 with a sharp hatchet, and avoid, as much as possible. 



Brick Spawn Cut in Pieces for Plantdtg. 



making many crumbs, as is the case generally when a 

 hammer or mallet is used in breaking the bricks. Extra 

 large pieces of spawn are apt to produce large clumps of 

 mushrooms, but this is not always an advantage, as 

 when many mushrooms grow together in a clump they 

 are apt to be somewhat undersized, and in gathering we 

 can not pluck them all out clean enough so as not to 

 leave a part of the "root" in the ground to poison the 

 7 



