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day or two before you are obliged to, rather than leave 

 them out one day too long, for repeated freezing and thaw- 

 ing will greatly injure their keeping qualities. 



There are two methods of disposing of the crop. One is 

 to sell at the going price directly from the field, getting 

 from forty cents to a dollar a bbl., according to the market : 

 this method gives very little if any waste, and makes very 

 easy and clean trimming, and sometimes gives the best 

 returns, for some years the price is as good at harvest time 

 as in March or April following. The other method is to 

 hold the crop until winter or spring, and this makes stor- 

 ing necessary. The farmers of Dracut practice storing in 

 cellars, and a number of them have built large cellars for 

 this purpose, while others use their barn cellars or the 

 basement of some outbuilding. One of the largest of these 

 storage cellars is about 60x40 feet, and 10 feet high, built 

 in a side hill, with doors and shutters in the south side and 

 a hen house in the roof over it ; this cellar gives room for 

 perhaps 1500 bbls. of cabbage, beside having one end par- 

 titioned off for storing 300 or 400 bbls. of onions. The 

 cabbages are cut up about half way of the stump, the loose 

 leaves trimmed off and the heads packed away in racks 

 that are built from the floor to the top of the cellar ; these 

 racks are so arranged as to allow a passage every six feet 

 or so, and the heads are laid in only one deep so as to allow 

 a thorough circulation of air and frequent inspection. In 

 such a cellar the cabbage can be taken out very con- 

 veniently at any time that the price is good enough to suit 

 the owner, and if the temperature has been .properly at- 

 tended to will be fresh and crisp and bring the best price 

 in the market. 



Another way of storing is to cut them up about half-way 

 of the stump if well headed, but if loose pulling roots and 

 all, and set them heads up on grass ground and cover with 

 pine shiver, oak leaves or meadow hay, but it requires 

 much more hay than leaves to keep out the frost. And 

 still another way of bedding is practised by some of the 

 gardeners near Boston as well as by some seed growers, 



