SWEET POTATOES
Are far more difficult to carry through the winter than the Irish potatoes. They require more warmth and a dryer atmosphere, and should be stored in boxes of dry sand and set on some support away from the floor. The furnace cellar, if not too warm is the best place for them and it is well to use them freely so as to lessen the loss from decay as much as possible.
WINTER ONIONS
Should be stored in a dry place, a little above freezing. Slight frost does not injure onions, but repeated freezing and thawing does, while too much heat will start them to growing. An upstairs room that receives sufficient heat to keep it from freezing will do nicely and it is a good plan to use the best onions first so that those which are unfit for use towards spring will not be so much of a loss; however, as these onions make the very best of green onions they are by no means a total loss, but the small and inferior ones will do quite as well for this purpose, for it is the live germ only that is important, all the onion body is formed anew. Where there is a hanging shelf in a cellar that is dry and warm the onions can often be wintered there successfully.
WINTER SQUASH
Require a rather warm and dry situation; the cellar rarely affords the right conditions for wintering them successfully. An upstairs room or garret where a chimney passes through is often just the thing for them as they may be piled in a heap near the chimney, with layers of excelsior or straw between, and protected with blankets or quilts and so pass the winter in good condition. From such a storage I have taken perfectly sound, dry Hubbards in mid-June and March squash are by no means a rarity.
BEETS
May be dug any time before the ground freezes up; the shorter time any vegetable has to remain in cold storage the better for it, so if not brought in until about Thanksgiving the delay is all to the good. If the beets are to be stored in a root cellar covered with earth it is not material whether they are topped or not. I have sometimes thought that they kept rather better if the tops were allowed to remain; certainly there is, then, no loss from bleeding, and if piled in heaps with the tops all one way overlapping each other, but the tops free, it is far easier to find and remove them when wanted. Slight freezing does not injure beets if thawed out in cold water, but severe freezing does, so that sufficient earth should be used to cover them and the earth may be protected with blankets if necessary. If no root cellar is available the beets should be topped and packed with earth in bins or boxes in the vegetable cellar. If necessary to store in furnace cellar place as far from the furnace as possible. Where no other place for storage is available running a partition across one end or corner of the cellar will provide a place that will keep most vegetables in good shape and the expense will be covered by the saving in stock. The various wall boards advertised are excellent material with which to construct these little storage places and any handy man, or woman, for that matter, can put up something that will answer the purpose by the aid of a hammer and saw, a sheet or two of board and a few pieces of two-by-four to nail to.
CABBAGE
Are best stored in the root cellar, they may be pulled and stood up in the corner of the cellar and the roots buried in somewhat damp earth or they may be cut, the roughest leaves trimmed and the heads buried in earth, setting them upside down so that the earth will not work inside the leaves; handled in this way they should come out sound and good in spring. Wrapping in newspapers, where the supply is limited is sometimes successful, the main thing being to protect from the air and too great cold and to prevent the spread of decay which may attack individual heads.