HE-INVIGORATING OLD BEDS. 121 



weight of mushrooms is about the same. As there is in, 

 say a ton of manure, only so much mushroom-producing 

 power, if you force it to produce that Aveight in two 

 mouths you are a gainer, as you thereby save in labor ; 

 but when that producing-power is exhausted it will pro- 

 duce no more mushrooms." 



A spent mushroom bed is one that has been kept in 

 bearing condition under the most favorable circumstan- 

 ces at our command, and it has borne a good crop, lasted 

 some two months in bearing, and now it has stopped 

 bearing (except in a meagerly, desultory way) because 

 the spawn or mycelium has exhausted itself and is dead. 

 Then, without living spawn in the bed how are we to 

 get mushrooms ? Some bits of mycelium are still alive 

 and yield the desultory few, but every mushroom that 

 they yield is preying on their vitality, and after a time 

 they too shall die and the bed be completely barren, for 

 the mycelium is altogether dead, and without mycelium 

 mushrooms are an impossibility. We can keep mush- 

 room mycelium in active growth the year round, and 

 year after year, providing we never let it bear mush- 

 rooms. This is done by taking the mycelium, just 

 before it begins bearing, from one manure bed and plant- 

 it in another, and so on from bed to bed. At every 

 fresh transplanting the mycelium exerts itself into re- 

 newed growth, for it must become u strong plant before 

 it has strength enough to produce and support a mush- 

 room. Our utmost efforts have never rendered mycelium 

 in a mushroom-bearing condition perennial. 



