THE FARMER'S MANUAL. , 37 



haying being closed ; your oat harvest secur 

 ed ; your cross-ploughing finished ; your early plant- 

 ed potatoes will now claim your attention. Your white f 

 and yellow potatoes, are first ripe ; take them before 

 the vine is entirely dead, and haul them out of the 

 hills with a three-tined hook-fork : in this state, they 

 \yill generally adhere to the vines, and by one stroke 

 of the fork, the hill will be nearly cleared; but if you 

 suffer your potatoes to stand until your vines are dead, 

 the coats of the yellow, and white potatoes, will soon 

 begin to rust and grow defective ; they will also sever 

 from the vines, and the expense of digging with the 

 hoe, nearly, or quite doubled. To save expense and 

 labour, is ready mone^, in all business ; but in farming, 

 it is ready money with interest, because it saves time, 

 which is more valuable to the farmer, who is engaged 

 about his farm, than money. I can say from my own 

 knowledge, that one man, with such a fork as above, 

 can throw out of the hill, after two hoeings, and when 

 the vines are partly green, more than 100 bushels of 

 potatoes in a day ; but how many the same man could 

 dig with the hoe in the same time, I have no knowledge. 



Your potatoes should be gathered, and housed, as 

 soon as dry, to preserve them from injury, from cat- 

 tle, and the weather. Your early potatoes generally 

 command a good market, and a fair price ;.but one of 

 your best markets is your hog-stye. The value of 

 this root, when boiled and mixed with bran, corn, or 

 oat-meal, and given to hogs to b; ing them forward to 

 fatten, may be fairly estimated at 2s. or 2sfr the bushel. 



Gather your potatoe-vines, coarse hay and stout 

 stubble, and fill your hog-pens. Cart in turf and 

 other rich earths, and cover the vegetables in your 

 hog- pens $ tho great hcai and warm mine in rlr^-rl^jo, 

 will bring your manure forward fast. Spare neither 

 time nor^expense ; it will prove a rich mine. 



Flax and Hemp. 



Your flax next claims your attention ; this, if you de- 

 sign it for the nicest domestic manufacture, you wiH 



