Celery should also be buried in sand.
Turnips and beets should be put in a dry part of the cellar. Carrots keep anywhere. Onions keep best spread, and in a cool place, but should not freeze. Parsnips are best buried in a pit in the garden, and not opened till March or April, in cold parts of the country.
Squashes should be kept in a dry place, and as cold as may be without freezing.
Apples should remain out of doors in barrels till the weather becomes too cold. They should not be headed up immediately after being gathered, as a moisture accumulates upon them which causes them to decay. When brought in, set them in a back room, until the weather requires their being put into the cellar. A linen cloth laid over them will keep them from frost till very cold weather. Many good housekeepers prefer not to have apples headed up at all. There is an advantage in being able to pick them over several times in the course of a winter, as one defective apple injures all its neighbors. If they are moist, wipe them.
Herbs should be gathered when just beginning to blossom; as they are then in their perfection. Medicinal herbs should be dried, put up in paper bags, and labelled. Those used in cooking should be pounded, sifted, and put into labelled boxes or bottles. Herbs retain their virtue best, to be dried by artificial heat. The warmth of an oven a few hours after the bread is drawn, is sufficient.
Inspect every part of your house often, and let every place be neatly kept. Habits of order in housekeeping save a great deal of time and trouble, and the most thorough way of doing every thing, is the most economical of labor and money, in the end.
Every thing used in the preparation of food should be kept clean. A half washed pot or saucepan, or a dingy brass kettle, will spoil the articles cooked in them. A lady should accustom herself to such habits of attention to her household concerns, that careless ways on the part of those who serve her, will not escape her observation. Unfaithfulness in servants is the sure result of ignorance or negligence in the housekeeper.
DIRECTIONS ABOUT WASHING, &c.
The design of these directions is to assist the inexperienced; to teach those who are unacquainted with the business of washing, how to do it, and those who can afford to employ others, how to direct them; and also to discover where the fault lies when it is not done well.