24 



CLAY COUNTY ILLUSTRATED 



One of T. H. Skrei's Potato Fields — Yield 220 Bushels per Acre 



chine shakes off the dirt and drops the 

 clean potatoes in a narrow row behind 

 the digger. Alternate rows are dug 

 as the horses hauling the diggers 

 would step on the potatoes if each row 

 were dug in succession. Picking is 

 done by hand, the usual method being 

 for the pickers to work in pairs each 

 using a half bushel wire basket. When 

 the two baskets are filled the bushel 

 is dumped into a sack and left stand- 

 ing in the field. These sacks are then 

 gathered and hauled to the root cel- 

 lars which are as common on Clay 

 County farms as granaries and corn 

 cribs are in other localities. The po- 



tatoes are then run over a sorter that 

 separates any small ones or culls that 

 may have been gathered by the pick- 

 ers ; and the selected tubers then go 

 into the piles in the cellar. As all of 

 the potatoes grown in Clay County, 

 not used for seed or home consump- 

 tion, are shipped to the south and 

 southwest for seed, they are held in 

 the cellars until late in the winter. 



The temperature of the cellars is 

 kept a few degrees above the freezing 

 point by opening the ventilators if 

 too warm, or heating with stoves if 

 too cold. The illustrations of the cel- 

 lars show the method of construction, 



Louis Altenbernd's Potato Warehouse and Office, Sabin 



