In the Garden
Two things worth preserving with some technical care are autumn leaves and onions. The first keep longest, especially if they are beechen. If the boughs are dipped for a while in glycerine and water they will keep their colours and their hold on the stalk almost indefinitely, but it is better also to press them very firmly, so that the leaves may keep their native flatness. Now for onions, the most important of winter vegetables. Like apples they prefer fresh air and perhaps a certain amount of light and space. Some gardeners keep them very successfully by laying them on rabbit wire or, say, wire pea-guards stretched across the rafters of their sheds. It is important to remove the very loose bits of shell and to hand-pick the whole consignment, setting aside for immediate use any that have a flaw. Where shelves are not available apples keep well enough in boxes if all fruits are sound and are wrapped in paper. It is well to remember that apples so stored mature rather more quickly than those exposed to a current of air.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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