CHAPTER XXIX. 
ROOT HOUSES AND VEGETABLE PITS. 
N the North, we have to protect our gathered 
crops and to store them safely for a profitable 
market, but we do not need an expensive 
barn or cellar for that. A root house or vegetable 
pit will do instead. 
This is the way to make one: in a warm, sandy 
or gravelly soil a pit is dug from one to two feet 
deep and sixteen or more feet wide, the length 
depending upon the crop you have to store. 
The sides of the pit are lined with one or two 
planks placed edgewise and held in place by 
stakes driven into the ground. Stakes are then 
driven into the bottom of the pit through- 
out its entire length; these support the ridge- 
pole four or five feet above the floor of the pit. 
Boards are laid from the edge of the pit to the 
ridge-pole to form a sort of gable roof. The 
support of these is strengthened by another girder 
carried by stakes driven half way between the 
margin and the ridge-pole. Then longer boards, 
from twelve to fourteen feet in length, are laid 
from the edge of the pit to the ridge-pole, slightly 
overlapping each other, and nailed lightly in 
place at the top ends. The pit being only a 
temporary structure, the boards are not se- 
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