POTATOES FOR THE MARKET GARDENER. 391 



generally the case when most farmers are too busy with hay to 

 stop to dig and sell — the market gardener should get his potatoes to 

 the market. 



Horse-power diggers are preferable, and if we could get a horse- 

 power picker the main labor of potato raising would disappear. 



Potatoes on heavy and wet land should be dug in the morning 

 and gathered in the afternoon in baskets and left standing filled 

 that they m^ay be easily and rapidly gathered and hauled either to 

 the cellar, if cool and dry, or to a building where they can be kept 

 cool and dark; or, if desirable, they can be put into temporary 

 heaps of twenty or thirty bushels and covered with five or ten inches 

 of dry straw, and then with eight or ten inches of earth, with a sheaf 

 at top for ventilation if damp or hot. Here they can be left until 

 freezing weather, when they may be stored in the cellar or sold. If 

 <Jry, they can be kept in the cellar in heaps of 250 or 300 bushels. If 

 disposed to rot sprinkle with air-slaked white lime. This is a safe 

 precaution in any case. 



As to size of potatoes for planting, that depends. If the crop is 

 small, to save the little potatoes is all right for one year. That is, if 

 there are few big and few little, the small ones have strength enough 

 to grow another good crop under favorable circumstances. 



As to color, white skinned potatoes always for a seller. 



Of varieties, Bovee, Carmen No. 3, Ohio and early Ohio for early 

 ■do well here. Rural New York, Carmen No. 1, Ideal, Maggie Mur- 

 phy and Burbank for late. But if we could get the old Peachblow 

 restored to its old time vigor, we would then have the ideal potato 

 in fact. 



HARVESTING THE APPLE CROP. 



C. W. MERRITT, HOMER. 



The subject of harvesting the apple crop.which you have assigned 

 to me, is one of moment. Just when and just how to do it puzzles 

 the oldest man, and yet there is not a school boy in our neighbor- 

 hood but knows Just how to do it and, ordinarily,iri2ea to do it. 



I hardly think any two men in the state will agree upon the sub- 

 ject of harvesting apples. My opinion now is that for cold storage 

 or shipment the Duchess apple should be gathered before fully 

 ripe, while all other varieties that I know anything about will keep 

 better if you tide them over to the cool weather in September or 

 later. I am satisfied apples gathered in hot weather will not keep. 

 ^' A writer has said that the sap in a tree limb remains at a normal 

 temperature under a blazing sun." The apple picked from the tree 

 is cold, but once off it soon becomes as warm as the surrounding 

 atmosphere and must soon go to market into cold storage or rot; 

 while if it is gathered cool, at once put in a cool place, either cold 

 storage or cellar, it will keep much longer in my opinion — but I 

 have'nt been long enough in the business to know it all yet. 



I gather the most of my apples with the aid of a stepladder, 

 having a basket with a wire attached to the handle that I can hook 

 over a limb within convenient reach. I am in favor of having trees 



