Home Storage of Vegetables 341 
squashes, and pumpkins the air should be rather moist. 
This prevents wilting and shriveling. 
(5) The storage room should be dark. As a rule vege- 
tables keep best in darkness. Some vegetables, like 
Trish potatoes, become somewhat green, and root crops 
may start growth if they are not kept in darkness. 
Storage in the house cellar. An unheated frost-proof 
cellar is an excellent storage place for nearly all garden 
vegetables. A cellar with a furnace in it is likely to be 
too warm for very long storage of most vegetables, and a 
cool room should be partitioned off. This is usually 
made in one corner, with the outside walls of the cellar 
forming two sides. The other walls of the cool room 
should be tightly built of tongue-and-groove lumber, 
with double walls, or else made of hollow tile. 
For ventilation there should be a window with a chute 
built into one pane and leading to the floor. This per- 
mits the entrance of cool, fresh air. A hinged door in 
place of another pane is provided to allow warm air to 
escape, thus insuring perfect ventilation. In severely 
cold weather these may be closed to prevent freezing. 
Cabbages, beets, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, and 
potatoes are stored in bins or shelves built about the 
walls or placed’ in boxes, baskets, crates, or barrels that 
are rather loosely stacked. Packing in dry leaves, straw, 
or sand aids in keeping root crops in good condition. 
Celery, curled endive, and pe-tsai may be packed in 
boxes, with the roots in soil or sand. If water is added 
to the soil about the roots at intervals, the plants will 
remain remarkably fresh; but the tops should be kept 
rather dry, or they may rot. 
