102 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



Prof. Taft: That is true, but in this case there is no chance for it. 



Mr. Kellogg: I would guard against that. 



Prof. Tracy: We had last year on our farm between eight and nine 

 thousand bushels of onions which we wished to keep till spring, and did 

 so very successfully by means of a building which I will describe, as it 

 may furnish adyantageous hints to others. First we built bins about one 

 foot deep and oyer each other so that, the bottom of the first was about 

 eighteen inches from the ground and the bottom of the second about two 

 feet aboye that of the first, and the top one some eight feet from the 

 ground. Into these bins we put our onions, then we built a house around 

 them in this way. We stuck two-by-fours about ten feet long into the 

 ground about two feet from the bins, and on them nailed common 

 barn boards running horizontally, and on this nailed double thickness of 

 cheap tarred paper, and oyer this another la3'er of boards running yerti- 

 cally. The roof was formed in the same way — two-by-four rafters, hori- 

 zontal boards, two thicknesses of tarred paper, vertical boards. Our 

 object was to make an air-tight box, and we succeeded much better than 

 one would think possible in such a crude way. There was but one small 

 door into the building, btit in building the bins we had left a space about 

 eight feet wide open in the center, and in the center of this we built a 

 nearly air-tight shaft about eight feet square at the bottom, tapering to 

 about four feet square at the top and passing through and some five 

 feet above the roof. This shaft had openings closed by trap doors on each 

 side at the bottom and another set just beneath the roof, while just 

 above these upper ones there was a diaphram which could be opened or 

 closed. There was also a door on one side. In this shaft we set up a small 

 stove, the pipe passing up through the shaft and out through the covered 

 top. We filled the space between the top of the onions in each bin and 

 the bottom of the bin above it with loose, dry straw, and also covered the 

 onions in the upper bin with the same material. We had a number of 

 thermometers in diffei'ent parts of the house, and on the approach of 

 cold weather we would build a fire in the stove, close the doors in the 

 diaphram, open those at the top and bottom, and in fifteen minutes the 

 air would be circulating into the bottom of the shaft, up through it, out 

 over the top of the onions, down the outside space under the onions to 

 the shaft again, and in this way a very little heat would keep frost out 

 and we were enabled to keep a very even, low temperature." Some of the 

 onions were frozen when we finished the house, and forty days later they 

 were still frozen, though none of the others had frozen at all. When the 

 weather was warm we would open the diaphram and the openings in 

 the upper part of the shaft and close those in the bottom. I never saw 

 onions kept in better condition than those, and the cost of the house was 

 very small. We did not expect to use it only that winter, but it did so 

 well and we found it so valuable to keep roots which were to be set out 

 for seeding, that it still stands. When we want to refill it we sim]ily tear 

 open one side, put in the onions, and then rebuild the opened side. 



Mr. Morrill : We understood that between each bin of onions, or each 

 shelf upon Ayhich you placed them, from the top to the bottom of the 

 next shelf in that bin — did you fill it with straw so that 1he circulation 

 would not be through the tiers? 



