POTATO CULTURE . 139 



Light will turn them green so they are unfit for food, but it 

 will not injure them for seed. A thermometer should al- 

 ways be kept in the cellar, so that you may know when to 

 let in cold air and when there is danger from frost. An oil- 

 stove is the thing to raise the temperature slightly, when it 

 may be necessary. I met a good many farmers this last cold 

 winter who lost potatoes in the cellar or pile. There is no 

 busiifess about such management. "Bury them, as described 

 in chapter 9, and they are safe. Buy a fifteen-cent ther- 

 mometer and a little oil-stove, and tend to the matter, and 

 they are safe in the cellar. I know one man, who is sadly in 

 debt, who lost 82 bushels of Freeman potatoes last winter, 

 the product of a barrel that cost him $15. I would have 

 paid him $164 for the potatoes this spring. 



But now some will say it is not safe to store potatoes large- 

 ly in a house cellar, where a family lives above. That de- 

 pends, It is safe in our cellar. I would just as soon sleep 

 down there when it is full of potatoes. Still, we do not 

 intend to store there regularly, in large quantities, but we 

 have it ready for an emergency. Our cellar is plastered 

 overhead, and building-paper (air-tight) put all over the 

 floors above, under the carpets. The draft of the stove can 

 not draw any air out of the cellar through the floor, as it 

 often does where less care is taken. Then we have a venti- 

 lating-flue running from the cellar to the top of the main 

 chimney (43 feet from the cellar bottom), by the side of a flue 

 that is always warm from being used for the heating-stove 

 above. This warms the air in the ventilating-flue so as to 

 create a draft that keeps the cellar all right; and an east 

 window is open except in the coldest weather. 



Sorting and Sprouting. 



We tested a new variety for a seed company last year, and 

 put the product, 90 bushels, into the cellar when we dug 

 them, they agreeing to pay us $1.00 a bushel for them. They 

 failed to keep their contract ; and this morning, as the tubers 



