Where ice is hard to get have holes made with a post-hole digger, a foot across and four feet deep. Fit stout wooden tops to them big enough to lap an inch all round. Put a handle on firmly and screw a stout hook in the middle underneath. Suspend things from this hook by a cord or light chain, as a bucket of milk, or butter, a bottle of wine, water, or grape juice, or a bag of fruit. Fresh meat even can be kept several days, of course wrapping it well before hanging it. Rain ruins this form of cold storage, but for camps, summer bungalows, and so on it is a very present help. A greater one is a dry well either rock-walled or planked up. Have it seven to eight feet deep, wide enough for a ladder, and set shelves around the edge. Or it may be simply dug, covered, and things let down into it at the end of strings. An abandoned well or cistern comes in handy for such use. If deep and dry, whole carcasses as of lambs, sheep, pigs, or deer can be hung and kept safe. =Dried Fruit=: Keep sun-dried fruit in a warm, airy place, sunning it often. Look it over for worms, throw out infested bits, scald the residue one minute in full boiling water, spread thin, and dry in the oven. In a long damp spell bring dried fruit into the kitchen and hang where heat will strike it, but away from steam. All this applies equally to sun-dried vegetables, such as corn, okra, and green peas, likewise to beans and peas full grown. =Keeping Rich Cake=: Plum cake, spice cake, or iced pound cake keep a long time treated thus: Pour a teaspoonful of brandy upon the under side, let it soak in, then wrap the whole loaf in a clean cloth and sprinkle with brandy. Put into an earthen crock with a tight cover, lay a fresh apple on top, and keep shut. Once a week set the crock upon a cooling range until warm through, removing the apple while warming. Put in a fresh apple every fortnight, and renew the brandy treatment at the same time. Plum cake almost demands this keeping, being better for a year of it. Other cakes should not be kept over six months. =Keeping Melons for Christmas=: Plant melons so they will ripen a little before frost. Build a rail pen, floor it two feet above ground, and lay on the floor a foot of corn stalks well packed. Stand other stalks about the edge, then fill in a foot of fresh corn husks. Bed in these the melons, cut each with a short length of vine, and the vine ends dipped in melted paraffine. Wrap the melons in tissue paper, take care not to let them touch nor lie too close to the stalk wall. Cover with another foot of husks, packed down firmly, but not rammed. Over these put more corn stalks, filling the pen with them. Lay on a slanted roof of boards, weighting them in place.