40 
MUSHROOMS, HOW TO GROW THEM. 
banked around on the outside with litter or tree leaves 
or earth, so as to exclude frost from the lower part of 
the walls, and thereby prevent the manure in the beds 
from getting badly chilled. The beds should be made 
deeper in a cool shed than in a cellar or warm mush¬ 
room house, so that they may retain their heat for a 
long time. 
Shelf beds should not be used in unheated sheds, be¬ 
cause of the difficulty in keeping them warm in winter. 
As a rule, shelf beds are not made as deep as are those 
upon the floor; hence they do not hold their heat so 
long. When cold weather sets in it is easy to box up 
and cover over the lower beds to keep them warm, but 
in the case of shelf beds, that are exposed above and 
below, it is more trouble to protect them sufficiently 
against cold than they are worth. 
Generally speaking, the term shed is applied to un¬ 
heated, simple wooden structures; for instance, the 
wood-shed, the tool-shed, a carriage-house, or a hay- 
barn. But we often use the name shed to designate 
heated buildings, as the potting and packing sheds of 
florists. Were it not that these heated sheds are simply 
workrooms, and where there is a great deal of going out 
and in, and, consequently, draughts and sudden and 
frequent fluctuations of temperature, the treatment of 
mushroom beds made in them would be the same as 
that advised for regular mushroom houses; but as the 
circumstances are somewhat different the treatment, 
too, should not be the same. A warm potting shed is an 
excellent place for mushroom beds. Here they should 
be made under the benches and covered up in front with 
thick calico, plant-protecting cloth, or light wooden 
shutters, to exclude cold currents and sudden atmos¬ 
pheric changes, and guard against the beds drying too 
quickly. 
