Planting 57 



manure used. If one desires to keep a bed especially 

 warm, the frame may be banked outside with fresh 

 manure. 



PLANT-SHEDS 



In Florida it has been found advantageous to grow the 

 choicer kinds of pineapples under sheds. These sheds 

 may be made by setting 8^-foot posts 8 feet apart north 

 and south, by 14 feet east and west. Stringers 2 by 6 

 inches and 15 feet long are fastened on the tops of the 

 posts in east and west lines. Across the stringers are 

 nailed the laths or slats, which may be 1 or 3 inches by 16 

 feet; or laths supported by wires may be used. The 

 spaces between the slats may be once, twice, or thrice the 

 width of a slat. These sheds were first started to give 

 protection from frosts, but it was found that pineapples 

 under sheds grew better and required less fertilizer, and 

 the soil kept moister in dry weather, than was the case 

 with those in the open. Similar sheds are now used in 

 south Florida nurseries to shelter young mangoes, avoca- 

 does, palms, and other tropical plants and fruit-trees. 

 The so-called grass conservatories, used in India for grow- 

 ing plants which do not endure well the full blaze of the 

 sun in the hot season, are made in a similar way, except 

 that they are covered with wire netting on which a reed- 

 like grass is bound so as to give half-light and half-shade. 

 In most tropical and some subtropical countries, bamboos 

 can readily be gro'wn and a plant-shed covered with split 

 bamboo lath can be constructed cheaply. However, 

 most tropical plant-sheds are small, whereas some Florida 

 pineapple sheds cover scores of acres continuously. The 



