Spawning the Bed.
IN the work of spawning the bed, the utmost precaution must be observed, not to perform it until the great heat has passed off, and left only a very gentle warmth; for the small tender spawny-fibres and minute knots of embryo plants would, by one days great heat, be totally destroyed. All that is required, is a kindly warmth just to set the spawn in motion, and forward it in shooting out its tender fibres over the dung and earth. But it must be remembered, that a bed being spawned and closely covered over with the necessary coat of earth, an inch or two thick, thereby excluding the outward air, and confining the heat within, occasions that heat to be renewed afresh, and might cause the bed to burn; so that you must be cautious in putting in the spawn while much heat remains: nor must the covering of litter be applied too soon after, especially in strong beds: for these require a week, a fortnight, or more, before this is proper to be done.
Be careful therefore in these particulars: for on spawning and covering in at a due degree of warmth, depends the whole success; and in this you will be regulated according to the working of the bed, as some will be fit to spawn in two, three, or four weeks, others not in less than five or six, according to their length, and the strength of the dung. A bed of fifteen or twenty feet long will be sooner ready for spawning than one of forty or fifty.
After the bed has been made a fortnight or three weeks, examine it frequently by the trying-sticks, which we advised, examining them frequently and you will readily discover the requisite heat and proper state to admit of spawning.
Sometimes in very substantial beds, after they have remained seemingly long enough, and we are doubtful of an increase of heat, we begin spawning on the lower part of the bed first, which part becomes warm before the upper; the heat naturally mounting upwards, and remaining hot longest towards the top; besides, by leaving the upper half unspawned and un-earthed, the heat from below if it should prove a little too strong, finds vent above; but in about a week's time spawn it wholly: the lower part having a week's advanced growth, will probably furnish a small gathering some days before the upper half.
However, in general, after having observed the necessary precautions just given, take the first opportunity to perform the spawning, losing no time for the bed to exhaust itself ineffectually without being planted.
Let the spawn be brought forth in a dry day, and be careful that it is tolerably dry in itself; proceed to plant it in pretty middling lumps; not separating the spawn, from the lumps of dung in which it is contained; but observing that the large cakes be broken into moderate pieces. Plant the sides of the bed in one or other of the three following methods, viz. just within the dung, earthing over an inch or two thick―on the surface, and then earthing over—or, by first earthing the bed an inch or two thick, then spawning the earth, and adding an inch depth more over the whole.
Each method perform as follows.