68 POTATO CULTURE. 



every few feet. They are of no earthly use for dry, cool 

 potatoes, dug weeks before and taken from the cellar to the 

 pile. They might be, if potatoes were freshly dug. About 

 that I do not know. 



Notice the two dead-air spaces, made by using two layers 

 of straw and two of earth. This makes the protection from 

 cold and from changes of temperature much greater. Put 

 up as I have described, with perhaps a little heavier covering 

 in colder latitudes, I should feel entirely safe from frost in 

 an unusually cold winter, and from too much covering for a 

 warm winter. We hear of this objection. I do not think 

 there is any thing in it. Cover enough. Then if the pile is 

 in proper shape, and potatoes in right condition when put 

 out, and earth ditto, deep covering can do no injury in a 

 warm winter. 



After putting on the first covering of earth, you can spread 

 some chaif around the base of the pile to prevent the earth 

 that you want to use for a second covering from freezing ; 

 otherwise, some cold day, when you must finish covering, to 

 protect the potatoes, you might find hard shoveling. 



This selection and care of seed is a good deal of trouble ; 

 but the time seems to have passed when we can raise a large 

 and paying crop of potatoes or any thing else without 

 trouble. I have heard old men tell of planting a field and 

 plowing it out only once, perhaps, and in the fall they could 

 kick out the potatoes, 400 or 500 bushels per acre. We can't 

 do it now, and I think these old farmers must have had 

 pretty long chains and small baskets to measure with. One 

 of these men, who bragged of having raised some 500 bushels 

 per acre, once came across my lot when we were digging a 

 load of Early Rose potatoes. He stood silently by for some 

 time, but at last exclaimed, " That beats any thing I ever 

 saw in the way of potato yield ! " They were turning out 

 not quite two bushels per square rod, or at the rate of 300 

 bushels per acre. An acre of potatoes yielding 500 bushels 

 is a sight not often seen in this locality. I have dug small 



