438 THE FARMER S AND 



are corked, for a few minutes in hot water, the berries will 

 keep better. 



It is sometimes safer to take up certain vegetables be- 

 fore hard frosts set in, where the cold is severe, as they 

 may be preserved by artificial means, even by laying on 

 a floor inaccessible to the frost ; whereas, if left in the 

 ground, they would have been frozen and lost. This, in 

 some situations, is the case with cabbages, lettuce, greens, 

 endive, leeks, cauliflowers, etc. They should be care- 

 fully removed in dry weather, without injuring the roots 

 too much. Vegetables only a little touched by the frost, 

 may be recovered by soaking in cold water. 



Potatoes are difficult to preserve for many years, and 

 hence they are considered less to be depended upon than 

 wheat against years of scarcity ; but as they are seldom 

 required to be kept longer than during the winter and 

 spring seasons, with proper preparations, this is not diffi- 

 cult. 



When preserved in considerable quantities by the far- 

 mers, several methods are put in 

 practice in different districts ; but 

 the principle appears to be merely 

 to keep them dry, and so protected 

 that the frost cannot reach them. 

 A very effectual method was em- 

 ployed by Mr. Young. He constructed a house capa- 

 ble of holding seven hundred bushels of potatoes, and 

 made it of fir posts, a, a, (see cut,) having the interstices 

 filled in with watling ; against the sides of this he laid 

 straw, and against that, exteriorly, he put earth rammed 

 tight six feet thick at the bottom, and eighteen inches at 

 the top. The roof was flat, and he placed on it a 

 stack of beans. The beans kept out the weather, and 

 yet admitted any steam that rose from the potatoes, and 

 which if it did not escape, would have rotted them. A 



