nto a hole in the ground will keep well during the
winter, and be hard, fresh, and sweet, in the spring. Many farmers
keep potatoes in the same way.

Onions should be kept very dry, and never carried into the cellar
except in severe weather, when there is danger of their freezing. By
no means let them be in the cellar after March; they will sprout and
spoil. Potatoes should likewise be carefully looked to in the spring,
and the sprouts broken off. The cellar is the best place for them,
because they are injured by wilting; but sprout them carefully, if you
want to keep them. They never sprout but three times; therefore, after
you have sprouted them three times, they will trouble you no more.

Squashes should never be kept down cellar when it is possible to
prevent it. Dampness injures them. If intense cold makes it necessary
to put them there, bring them up as soon as possible, and keep them in
some dry, warm place.

Cabbages need to be boiled an hour; beets an hour and a half. The
lower part of a squash should be boiled half an hour; the neck pieces
fifteen or twenty minutes longer. Parsnips should boil an hour, or
an hour and a quarter, according to size. New potatoes should boil
fifteen or twenty minutes; three quarters of an hour, or an hour, is
not too much for large, old potatoes; common-sized ones, half an hour.
In the spring, it is a good plan to cut off a slice from the seed end
of potatoes before you cook them. The seed end is opposite to that
which grew upon the vine; the place where the vine was broken off
may be easily distinguished. By a provision of nature, the seed end
becomes watery in the spring; and, unless cut off, it is apt to injure
the potato. If you wish to have potatoes mealy, do not let them stop
boiling for an instant; and when they are done, turn the water off,
and let them steam for ten or twelve minutes over the fire. See they
don't stay long enough to burn to the kettle. In Canada, they cut
the skin all off, and put them in pans, to be cooked over a stove,
by steam. Those who have eaten them, say they are mealy and white,
looking like large snow-balls when brought upon the table.

Potatoes boiled and mashed while hot, are good to use in making short
cakes and puddings; they save flour, and less shortening is necessary.

It is said that a bit of unslacked lime, about as big as a robin's
egg, thrown among old, watery potatoes, while they are boiling, will
tend to make them mealy. I never