Tutorials/Amethyst farming

 farming is the renewable way of obtaining amethyst shards, as well as small, medium, large amethyst buds and amethyst clusters. Amethyst shards are used to craft amethyst blocks for decoration and also is the only way to craft the spyglass, a tool which allows you to zoom onto your Minecraft world.

A few key points

 * Amethyst clusters will only drop 2 shards if harvested by a piston, however if you harvest it with a Fortune III pickaxe it can give you from 8 to 16 shards. That means that unlike most farmable mobs, items and blocks, farming amethyst manually can yield more amethyst than if you farm it automatically.
 * All the stages of amethyst buds and clusters will only grow and mature to the next stage if planted on a budding amethyst block. Budding amethyst blocks can produce new amethyst shards, but can only do so once on each side, and it has 6 sides.
 * Budding amethyst blocks itself are non-obtainable blocks, like monster spawners, which means that they won't drop if you mine them, no matter what tool and which enchantments you use. It can only generate in amethyst geodes, so if you want to farm them, you need to find an amethyst geode, and turn that area into the farm.