MUSHROOM SPAWN. ]5 



fields or taken from a temporarily spawned bed, and not 

 more than three weeks old, or found on the surface of old 

 beds. 



The next proceeding is to store the spawned bricks thinly 

 in a warm, dry house, or, better still, in a frame over a 

 gentle hotbed. Sometimes the bricks are piled sparsely on a 

 heap of well-prepared stable manure in a shed, and covered 

 with more of the same, but a dry house or heated frame, 

 kept at a temperature of about 80 deg. , is the safest. In 

 either case the bricks ought to be thoroughly permeated by 

 the manure in about a fortnight, and if, on being broken 

 open, they present a mouldy appearance, all should be 

 removed and stored thinly on edge, so as to keep quite drj', 

 in a room or dry shed till wanted for use. 



French Spawn—The French is very different in 

 appearance to the English spawn, as the former is supplied 

 m the form of mouldy flakes of strawy manure. It is sold 

 in neat deal boxes, and, as far as our experience goes, is not 

 equal to our own. Vendors of it make a mistake in not 

 supplying instructions in English instead of in their own, to 

 the majority of our countrymen, unintelligible jargon. 



Another Method of Obtaining^ Spawn. — There 

 are other methods of increasing spawn which are worthy of 

 being tried, especially by those who are anxious to make 

 a profit of their beds. Some of the best spawn we ever used 

 was taken from an old melon bed, the sides or lining gene- 

 rally of which was spawned about the first week in August. 

 The heating material for all the beds — we had spawned 

 several — consisted of cow-yard and horse-stable manure in 

 about equal proportions, and, as a matter of course, well 

 mixed and prepared by several turnings before it was used 

 either for forming the hotbed or for subsequent linings. 

 When the crop of melons commenced to ripen off, at which 

 stage less water was given, the bed was spawned inside and 

 out, and without any further trouble any amount of flaky 

 manure well overrun by the mycelium was available both 



