416 THE POTATO 



feet long, the potatoes keep with no other protection 

 than mustard straw or some other hght covering 

 that simply keeps off the light frosts. It must not 

 mat or shed water, or it will mold. These piles 

 are soaked through repeatedly with the rains and 

 no damage is done thereby to the potatoes. They 

 keep all right until well into the spring; if piled 

 east and west instead of north and south, some 

 potatoes on the north side always frost. 



Ten Japanese laborers will pick up the potatoes 

 as fast as one digger will take them from the ground, 

 or six acres per day of eighty sacks per acre. The 

 Japs cost $1.75 a day, or $17.50 for picking up 480 

 two-bushel sacks — a little over 3 cents a sack. 

 Potatoes are sacked as fast as dug, but the sacks 

 are left in the field to dry out for a day before being 

 piled in the ricks. 



A large part of the crop is sold to brokers at 

 digging time. The quality of the Lompoc and 

 Salinas potatoes is such that they generally bring 

 $1 to $1.50 per hundred as they come from the 

 field. The crop is graded into firsts, seconds, and 

 "cow feed. " The firsts are smooth, even, medium- 

 sized potatoes, the pick of the crop; seconds con- 

 tain more small and large and the uneven potatoes, 

 but are all sound; "cow feed" includes all cut, bad 

 and very small tubers. 



A popular rotation of crops at Lompoc is pota- 

 toes, beans, onions, potatoes, potatoes, beans, etc. 

 The soil is naturally very rich, all recent alluvial, 

 and there are frequent overflows from the streams 

 depositing silt. For this reason there has been 

 practically no commercial fertilizer used. Green 

 manuring with legumes is not done (the weather is 

 too cool for alfalfa to do well), and animal manures 

 are not used to any extent. In fact, there is very 



