Book VI. THE POTATOE. 783 



common among the growers of bulbous roots in Holland, as alluded to by Dr. Darwin, 

 "who also recommends its application to the potatoe. A woman, or boy, will crop the 

 blossoms from an acre of potatoes in a day, or even in less time where the crop is not 

 excessively luxuriant. 



4856. The taking of the crop of potatoes is on a small scale generally performed with 

 the spade or three pronged fork ; but under judicious farm management and the row 

 culture by the common plough. The coulter is removed and the plough goes first along one 

 side of all the ridgelets of a ridge, or any convenient breadth, and then, when the potatoes 

 so brought to view are gathered by women placed at proper distances, it returns and 

 goes along the other side. When the land is somewhat moist, or of a tenacious quality, 

 the furrow-slice does not give out the roots freely, and a harrow which follows the plough 

 is commonly employed to break it and separate them from the mould. Various con- 

 trivances have been resorted to for this purpose. A circular harrow or break to be attach- 

 ed to the plough, of very recent invention, has been found to answer the purpose well, 

 and to effect a considerable saving of labor. 



4857. A mode of taking part of a crop suited to cottagers and others, especially in years 

 of scarcity, deserves to be mentioned. Having ascertained that some of the tubers have 

 attained an eatable size, go along the rows and loosen the earth about each plant with a 

 blunt stick, taking two or three of the largest tubers from each and returning the earth 

 carefully. By this means both an early supply, and the advantage of two crops, may be 

 obtained ; for the tubers which remain will increase in size, having now the nourishment 

 destined to complete the growth of those removed. 



4858. Potatoes intended for seed should be taken up a fortnight or three weeks before 

 fully ripe, for reasons that will be given in treating of the diseases of this plant. The ill 

 shaped, small, bruised, or diseased tubers, should be laid aside, and the fairest and best 

 dried in the sun, and spread on a cellar or loft floor, and covered with ashes or chaff of 

 sufficient thickness to keep out the frost. In this state they may remain till wanted for 

 cutting. 



4859. Potatoes are stored and preserved in houses, cellars, pits, pies, and camps. What- 

 ever mode is adopted, it is essential that the tubers be perfectly dry, otherwise they are 

 certain of rotting, and a few rotten potatoes will contaminate a whole mass. Putting 

 them into close houses, and covering them well up with dry straw, is the most effectual 

 mode, and that which is generally adopted. In some parts of Scotland it is a common 

 practice to dig pits in the potatoe-field, when the soil is dry and light, and, putting in 

 potatoes to the depth of three or four feet, to lay a little dry straw over them, and then 

 cover them up with earth, so deep that no frosts can affect them. Another method, 

 which is practised in England as well as Scotland, is to put them together in heaps, and 

 cover them up with straw, in the manner of preserving turnips, with this addition, that 

 the heaps are afterwards well covered with earth, and so closely packed together as to 

 exclude frost. The farmers in Lancashire sort and s^arate their potatoes in the course 

 of tidcing them up according to their sizes, and are particularly careful to throw aside all 

 those that are spoiled before raising, or that are cut in the taking up. This is a very 

 necessary and proper precaution (although by no means generally attended to), as the 

 crop must have a much better chance for keeping, than when diseased or cut potatoes are 

 stored up with it. It is also of great advantage to have the work perfornaed in a dry 

 season, as the potatoes seldom keep well when taken up wet, or when placed in any sort 

 of repository for keeping while in that state. 



4860. But the best way of storing potatoeSy Young says, is in what are called potatoe-pies. 

 A trench, one foot deep and six wide, is dug, and the earth clean shovelled out, and laid 

 on one side, this has a bedding of straw, and the one-horse carts shoot down the potatoes 

 into the trench ; women pile them up about three feet high, in the shape of a house roof; 

 straw is then carefully laid on six or eight inches thick, and covered with earth a foot 

 thick, neatly smoothed by flat strokes of the spade. In this method he never lost any by 

 the severest frosts ; but in cases of its freezing with uncommon severity, another coat of 

 straw over all gives absolute security. These pies when opened, shoujd each be quite 

 cleared, or they are liable to depredation. To receive one at a time, besides also being at 

 first filled for immediate use, he has a house that holds about 700 bushels, formed of 

 posts from fir plantations, with wattled sides, then a layer of straw, and against that earth 

 six feet thick at the bottom and eighteen inches at top ; the roof flat, with a stack of beans 

 upon it. This he has found frost tight. The beans keep out the weather, he says, and 

 yet admit any steam which rises from the roots, which, if it did not escape, would rot 

 them, 



4861 . Several other modes of presetting potatoes are in use in different places. In Rut- 

 landshire, Marshal says, the method of laying up potatoes is universally that of camping 

 them ; a method somewhat similar to the above, but which requires to be described. 

 Camps are shallow pits, filled and ridged up as a roof with potatoes ; which are covered 

 up with the excavated mould of the pit. This is a happy mean, he thinks, between bury- 



