"Probably the first largest artificial mushroom beds were those made by the gardeners of Paris in the caves beneath that city. Piles of horse manure were used to receive the broken up pieces of the fungus, or spawn as it came to be called. When making new beds the Paris gardeners usually broke up an old bed that had passed the limit of profitable production and used chunks or flakes of it to spawn the new beds."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fungiculture