1382 



ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 



reproduced that a yield of two pounds 

 may be made constant, mushrooms may 

 be within the reach of many more per- 

 sons. 



Old Beds 

 When a bed has ceased to bear, or is 

 no longer commercially profitable, it 

 should be taken down and every particle 

 of the bedding and casing materials re- 

 moved from the cave, cellar, or house. 

 The manure is still valuable for field and 

 garden purposes, but it is wholly useless 

 and even dangerous for mushrooms be- 

 cause it is not only exhausted with refer- 

 ence to mushroom growing but may also 

 harbor the diseases or enemies of the 

 mushroom. When the bed is removed 

 the house should be thoroughly cleaned, 

 and if possible, sprayed or fumigated. If 

 conditions remain constant there is then 

 no reason why another crop should not 

 follow immediately. 



Musbrooitt Spawn and Its Preparation 



As a good spawn is one of the prime 

 requisites to success in mushroom culture 

 I suggest that in buying spawn you deal 

 with firms known to be reliable. Dur- 

 ing the past few years a number of fraud- 

 ulent concerns have been advertising ex- 

 tensively and disseminating a great deal 

 of misleading information for the purpose 

 of selling worthless spawn at exorbitant 

 prices. Have nothing to do with those 

 who advertise for sale, books containing 

 "secrets" regarding mushroom culture, 

 who ask $1 to $2 per pound for spawn, or 

 who claim that immense profits can be 

 derived from mushrooms. There are no 

 secrets about mushroom growing. Good 

 English brick spawn can be bought in 

 small lots for about 12 to SO cents per 

 pound, French flake spawn for 15 to 38 

 cents per pound, and pure-culture spawn 

 for 15 to 25 cents per cake. Mushrooms 

 are about as profitable and fully as risky 

 as the average greenhouse crop, and, like 

 other crops, require considerable care and 

 work to insure success. Most of the well- 

 known seed firms handle not only the im- 

 ported, but now also the pure culture 

 spawn, methods for making which were 

 worked out by this Bureau several years 

 ago and are given below. 



Brick and Flake Spawn 



The process of making mushroom 

 spawn, or of spawn manufacture, as it 

 is commonly termed, has unfortunately 

 received very little attention in this 

 country until recently. Nearly all of the 

 mushroom spawn sold in the American 

 market has been imported. Most of this 

 is grown in England and is put up in 

 the form of bricks or cakes, each brick 

 being about 5% by 8% by 1% inches 

 and weighing from 1% to 1% pounds. 

 This brick spawn is frequently spoken 

 of merely as English spawn for the 

 reason that the English article is all 

 put up in this form. The making of 

 brick spawn is not usually practiced by 

 the French growers, who use instead a 

 flake spawn. The explanation of this 

 fact may be that a large number of 

 French growers make their own spawn 

 and the brick method is of course more 

 laborious. The flake spawn consists 

 merely of the loose composted material, 

 equivalent to the ordinary bedding ma- 

 terial, through which the mycelium of 

 the fungus has grown abundantly. The 

 brick spawn is very compact and easily 

 handled; and, from the experiments 

 which have been made by this depart- 

 ment with the introduction of spawns 

 of various kinds, it would seem to be 

 established that the brick spawn is bet- 

 ter fitted to resist the conditions of ship- 

 ment and subsequent storage. We have, 

 therefore, the curious fact that, although 

 mushroom growing is perfected to the 

 highest degree in France, very little of 

 our imported mushroom spawn comes 

 from that country. 



Again, the brick spawn sells at a lower 

 figure than the flake spawn grown by 

 the French. Good flake spawn is, how- 

 ever, such a dense mass of mycelium 

 that as a rule less is required in spawn- 

 ing. The comparative quotations of re- 

 liable firms who are agents for this 

 article are as follows: 



Cents per Pound 

 English brick spawn ^ 1 pound —12 to 30 



Do 100 pounds — 6 to 15 



French flake spawn ^1 pound —15 to 38 



Do 100 pounds — 10 to 15 



The freight rates and import duties 



