126 POTATO CULTURE. 



The grocer who bought them put two or three loads into 

 the cellar to keep. He was greatly surprised to see how 

 much they had shrunken when he used them, months later. 

 When we were drawing to market we always sold all we 

 could when they were about in the above condition. They 

 looked their best, and were fine to eat ; but I always told 

 people that, it' they bought to store, they must expect heavy 

 shrinkage. 



But now suppose you do not want to sell by the load in 

 early market. You want to store the potatoes, or load on 

 cars in bulk and ship. In this case, we in this latitude 

 always dig as soon as the potatoes are entirely ripe. This is 

 when the vines are all dead and the tubers separate readily 

 from the roots. We do this, even if it is in August ; and if 

 we do not want to ship we store them until we do. There is 

 nothing gained by leaving them in the earth any longer, and 

 there may be loss. I don't know about the scab increasing 

 after the potato is ripe, but I do know that wire worms, 

 white grubs, etc., continue to put in their work ; and if they 

 are numerous they may almost ruin an early crop left in the 

 ground until fall. Again, after the vines die down, the sun 

 may find its way into cracks, and the light injure the tubers 

 some. They are certainly safer and better off in a cool cel- 

 lar, protected entirely from light, than in the hot earth dur- 

 ing August and September. You can keep them all right if 

 properly stored. Of this we will write in the next chapter. 

 There may be this single exception : If the potatoes are rot- 

 ting it is generally considered better to leave them in the 

 ground until the trouble is over. If you dig and pile them 

 while rotting badly, you will get diseased tubers in with 

 the sound, or the disease in the sound ones will be hastened 

 on by the piling, and you may have no end of trouble in 

 picking them over, and perhaps lose about all. A friend at 

 Cazenovia, N. Y., wrote me last summer that he had dug 

 some, and they were rotting right down ; and, having had 

 no experience, he was at a loss what to do. I wrote him at 



