Fruit-Keeping in Winter 



559 



tree leaves, dried ferns or brakens, dry moss, 

 (S:c. None of these are, however, to be re- 

 commended, althougli tlie two last are the 

 least objectionable; for, as a rule, all dried 

 vegetable substances impart less or more of 

 their flavour to the fruit packed among them. 



Even shelves or boxes made of pine or fir 

 deals should be avoided, more especially when 

 new, as they impart a resinous flavour to 

 fruit stored on or in them, so that hard 

 wood is preferable, sucli as beech, plane, oak, 

 poplar, &c. 



ROOT-KEEPING IN WINTER. 



THE keeping of culinary roots, so as to 

 retain their freshness and excellence 

 unimpaired for the longest possible period, is 

 a matter of the highest importance in house- 

 hold management, notwithstanding that it is 

 too generally neglected ; and these indispen- 

 sable articles of daily consumption are treated 

 as if their deterioration by careless or unskil- 

 ful management was of no material moment. 

 Town residents have much to plead in excuse 

 when their potatoes, or turnips, manifest 

 signs of bad keeping ; but even they are in 

 most cases not entirely blameless, although 

 they may be so to a much less extent than 

 their neighbours who have ground-floor and 

 underground cellarage at their command ; or 

 those country residents who have both ample 

 out-door and in-door root storage at their 

 disposal. 



To maintain culinary roots in a proper 

 state of freshness and excellence it is indis- 

 pensable that the following general rules be 

 attended to. They should not be taken up 

 except in dry weather, nor stored when either 

 too wet or too dry, without in the latter case 

 being mixed with lightish soil or fine sand, 

 either of which should be just so dry as to 

 retain a lumpish form after being firmly 

 pressed in the hand, without falling down 

 immediately when it is opened. After storage 

 they should be protected, by proper covering, 

 from frost and rain, as well as from high 

 temperature, or kept as near down to 38° of 

 Fahrenheit as possible, so as to retard their 

 vegetation to the utmost; and at no time 

 during their storage should they be exposed 

 to either light or drought. No universal rule 

 can, however, be laid down for storing all 



kinds of culinary roots, but the potato and the 

 l>eet may be taken to exemplify different re- 

 quirements in root-keeping, which, with cer- 

 tain minor modifications, will apply to most 

 other kinds. 



We will not here allude to the preservation 

 of great masses of potatoes for wholesale 

 marketing, further than that, other essentials 

 being attended to, they should be provided at 

 storing with ample ventilation to carry off all 

 vitiated atmosphere and superfluous moisture 

 caused by sweating, partial decay, or other- 

 wise. Ventilation is seldom needed in 

 the limited quantities that are required 

 merely for home use ; for storing which, out 

 of doors, naturally dry, or well-drained, cool- 

 shaded airy sites should be chosen, in which 

 the potato pits may be excavated in a 

 northerly and southerly direction, to a depth 

 of about 9 inches by a width of 3 feet, which 

 excavations should, however, be dispensed 

 with when the ground is unavoidably of a 

 wet or water-retaining nature. The potatoes, 

 being then regularly heaped up as steep as 

 they will lie, should have light dryish earth 

 .shaken over them in sufficient quantity to fill 

 up the interstices, so as almost to cover the 

 outer surfaces of the tubers. The whole 

 should then be covered with good bare turf 

 laid with its grassy side down ; but where 

 turf cannot be conveniently got, 4 to 6 

 inches in thickness of clean dry straw may 

 be substituted, that of wheat being preferable, 

 over which a covering of firmly tramped earth, 

 from 9 to 1 2 inches in depth, must be laid, 

 having its surface smooth beaten to prevent 

 the ingress of rain. With the same view, 

 any cracks or subsidences occurring afterwards 



