196 POTATO CULTUKE. 



STORING POTATOES WHERE IT IS LIGHT ; GETTING RID OF 

 DAMPNESS, ETC. 



In the fall of 1886, 1, too, had a small patch of potatoes 

 raised on the Terry plan. They were on a piece of low 

 creek-bottom land ; in fact, it was a piece of ground that 

 had been considered so low and wet as to be good for noth- 

 ing. By underdraining, however, I had got rid of the 

 dampness entirely, and the potatoes were the second crop 

 that had been raised on the piece. Every thing worked 

 beautifully, and even friend Terry himself pronounced the 

 crop a fine one when he looked at it while it was growing. 

 Now, I have raised potatoes more or less all my life, but I 

 confess I had never seen any thing like what Terry describes 

 in this^book. I had never seen any such yields per acre, 

 nor any thing like digging potatoes at the rate he mentions. 

 When they were dug, however, I sent a good man with a 

 wagon-load of bushel boxes, and a boj r to pick up the pota- 

 toes. I came up behind them during the forenoon, and was 

 astonished at^the way they were throwing them out and fill- 

 ing the boxes. I thought they were making pretty good 

 progress, so I glanced at my watch, and, to my astonish- 

 ment, a good plump bushel was thrown out and picked up in 

 just six minutes. The man's wages is 15 cents per hour, and 

 the boy's 5 cents. So you can see it cost me just 2 cents per 

 bushel to dig the potatoes and put them in the boxes. I do 

 not know what the cultivation cost, but the ground is so 

 mellow it didn't cost very much. Now, there are other 

 places on our land where the man and boy could hardly get a 

 whole bushel in half an hour. Do you not see the point V 

 Poor ground can be made, by proper care, to do as well as 

 the best, and you have to go through almost the same mo- 

 tions that you do with the good ground. 



There is something more, however, to tell about these 

 potatoes. We had had, the year before, trouble with our 

 potatoes rotting, and I found those at the top of the barrels, 

 at the sides, and even at the bottom, were sound, and free 



