dustry,
but almost entirely confined to England, I think it best to restrict
myself to describing how it is made in England. Mr. John F. Barter, of
Lancefield street, London, is one of the most successful mushroom
growers and spawn makers in Great Britain. He writes me that he confines
himself entirely to the mushroom business; he makes his living by it. He
grows mushrooms in the winter months and makes spawn in the summer
months; he employs men for mushroom bed making from August until March,
then, to keep on the same hands during summer, he makes spawn for sale.
He grows for and sells in the London market about 21,000 pounds of
mushrooms a year, and in summer makes some 10,000 bushels, equal to
160,000 pounds, of brick spawn for sale. The amount of spawn made in a
year by this one manufacturer is about three times as much as the total
annual importation of mushroom spawn of all kinds into this country. And
he is only one maker among several. This fact alone must convince us
that mushroom-growing is carried on to a vastly greater extent in
European countries than it is here, where we have as good facilities as
they have, and an immensely better market.

The manner of making the spawn differs a little with the different
manufacturers, and no one can become proficient in it without practical
knowledge. I asked Mr. Barter if he thought spawn could be made
profitably in this country, paying, as we do, $1.50 a day for laborers,
and without any certainty of the same men staying with us permanently.
He writes me: "Uncertain labor would be of no use. Of course the wages
you pay would not affect it much, as I pay nearly as much as that for my
leading men. But to begin with, you must have a man that has had some
experience."

About the simplest and best way of making brick spawn that I find
described is the following from _The Gardeners' Assistant_. I may here
state that Robert Thompson, the author of this work, was for many years
the superintendent of the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens at
Chiswick, near London, and, in his day, was regarded as without a peer
in practical horticulture, and lived in the midst of the market gardens
of London and the principal mushroom-growing district.

"Fresh horse droppings, cow dung, and a little loam mixed and beaten up
with as much stable drainings as may be necessary to reduce the whole to
the consistence of mortar. It may then be spread on the floor of an open
shed, and when somew