OPERATIONS OF GATHERING, ETC. 369 



ration, such as the tulip and the crocus, are kept on cool dry shelves 

 or lofts, or in papers till the planting season. Parsnips, turnips, 

 carrots, &c., are preserved with most flavour by leaving them where 

 they have grown, covering the ground with litter, so as to exclude 

 frost and admit of their being taken up daily as wanted. Towards 

 the growing season they should have a thicker covering to exclude 

 atmospheric heat ; or a portion should have been taken up in autumn, 

 and buried in sand or soil, in a cool cellar, in order to retard vegeta- 

 tion as long as possible. The potatoes and onions will keep upwards 

 of a year without rotting or vegetating, if mixed with sand and buried 

 in a pit in dry soil, the upper part of which shall be at least five feet 

 under the surface of the ground, so as effectually to exclude air and 

 change of temperature. Ice-houses also prove valuable for retarding 

 the growth of vegetables in spring, and prolonging their season at all 

 times. Henderson, an eminent gardener at Brechin, makes use of the 

 ice-house for preserving roots of all kinds till the return of the natural 

 crop. By the month of April, the ice in the ice-houses is found 

 to have subsided four or five feet ; and this empty space may be filled 

 with vegetables to be preserved. After stuffing the vacuities with 

 straw, and covering the surface of the ice with the same material, 

 case-boxes, dry- ware casks, baskets, &c., filled with turnips, carrots, 

 beetroot, celery, and potatoes, may be placed upon it. By the cold of 

 the place, vegetation is so much suspended that all these articles may 

 be thus kept fresh and uninjured, till they give place to another crop 

 in its natural season. 



Keeping-fruits, such as the apple and pear, are preserved in the 

 fruit-room, on shelves, placed singly so as not to touch each other ; the 

 finer keeping-pears may be packed in jars and boxes, with dried fern, 

 or with kiln -dried barley-straw ; and baking apples and pears may be 

 kept in heaps or thin layers on a cellar floor, and covered with straw, 

 to retain moisture and exclude the frost. But the subject of keeping- 

 fruits will be recurred to in treating of the fruit garden. 



Packing and Transporting Plants and Seeds. Rooted plants and 

 cuttings, and other parts of plants intended to grow, may be preserved 

 for weeks, and, under certain circumstances, even for months, in damp 

 or dry moss, the direct action of the air and sun being excluded ; and 

 in this medium also they may be packed and sent to any distance within 

 the temperate hemispheres, but not in tropical regions, on account of 

 the extreme heat. Plants that are to pass through these regions are 

 planted in soil, in boxes with glass-covers, Wardian cases, etc., and being 

 occasionally watered, they are transferred from India to England with 

 a very moderate proportion of loss. Seeds are in general most safely 

 conveyed from one country to another in loose paper packages, kopt 

 in a dry airy situation, so as neither to be parched with dry heat nor 

 made to vegetate by moisture ; but some seeds which are apt soon to 

 lose their vitality, such as the acorns of American oaks, may be packed 

 in moist moss, in which they will germinate during the voyage ; but 

 if planted in soil as soon as they arrive, they will suffer little injury. 

 Nuts and other large seeds should be packed in sandy earth or chaff 



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