1293. To keep Parsnips.—Parsnips should be kept down cellar, covered up in sand, entirely excluded from the air. They are good only in the Spring.
1294. To keep Cabbages.—Cabbages put into 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.
1295. To keep Potatoes.—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.
Note.—Boiled potatoes are said to cleanse the hands as well as common soap; they prevent chaps in the winter season, and keep the skin soft and healthy.
1290. Boiling Potatoes.—The following method of dressing potatoes will be found of great use at the season of the year, when skins are tough and potatoes are watery. Score the skin of the potato with a knife, lengthwise and across, quite around, and then boil the potato in plenty of water and salt, with the skin on. The skin readily cracks when it is scored, and lets out the moisture, which otherwise renders the potato soapy and wet. The improvement to bad potatoes by this method of boiling them is very great, and all who have tried it find a great advantage in it, now that good potatoes are very difficult to be obtained.