October. 1906 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



251 



Sprinkling the Mushroom-beds 



Common Meadow-mushroom and Its Spawn 



Agaricus spores, they placed a mature mushroom on a sheet 

 of paper and then collected them a few days afterward in the 

 form of an impalpable brown powder. In order to cause 

 them to germinate, they had recourse to the media used in 

 bacteriology — moist air, damp sand or dung, for example. 

 The spores ready for germination become distended in the 

 first place in taking on a light color, and then throw out from 

 one of their poles a very fine tube which enlarges and ramifies 

 in all directions in budding. In this way there is formed a 

 small tuft of mycelium, which, in a favorable medium — 

 manure, for example — will extend indefinitely. 



Dr. Repin applies this process industrially in the following 

 manner: After distributing the manure in strata of equal 

 thickness between superposed steel plates, he submits the 

 whole to a pressure of seven hundred pounds to the square 

 inch. On coming from the press the whole is found to be 

 agglomerated into a plate about one-half an inch in thickness 

 and almost as hard as wood. He then sows these plates with 

 spores and places them under conditions most favorable for 

 the development of the mycelium, but in such a way as to pro- 

 tect them from elevations of temperature to as great a degree 

 as possible. The vegetation of the spawn is retarded, 

 although its vigor increases when it is introduced into the 

 warmish atmosphere of the mushroom-gallery. 



Atter the plates of manure have become entirely permeated 

 by the mycelium, they are cut by a machine into pieces four 

 inches square, each of which represents an insertion. The 

 mushroom-grower can therefore lay in a supply of the variety 

 that is best adapted to his quarry, for this virgin spawn re- 

 mains iree from the diseases which attack mushrooms, and 

 particularly that which is called "softening," so dreaded by 

 Parisian growers, whom it annually costs more than a million 

 francs. The mushrooms attacked by the cryptogam that 

 causes the disease become atrophied and covered with a rosy 

 down, and, at the epoch of their maturity, become deli- 

 quescent. 



We shall finish by giving a few statistics designed to show 

 the importance of this Parisian industry. There exist at pres- 

 ent in the department of the Seine about two hundred and fifty 

 mushroom installations owned by eighty individuals, not 

 counting a score of other exploitations distributed through the 

 neighboring departments. The number of workmen em- 

 ployed in the industry exceeds a thousand. The total value of 

 the mushrooms annually produced in the suburbs of Paris 

 amounts to twelve million 'francs, and certain tradesmen of the 

 Halles makes an exclusive specialty of their sale. Naturally 

 the industry therefore ranks as a most important one in 

 Paris. 



