Harvesting the Potato Crop. 189 



I have dug with two when soil was mellow and not much to do ; 

 But one can hardly run deep enough for best results with two 

 ordinary horses for motive power. Four go right along easily, 

 and the machine is made to stand the strain. On a hard, dry clay 

 soil the digger would not do well, nor would one' digging by hand. 

 When it is excessively wet, machine digging is bothersome, and 

 may be stopped entirely. You see the earth cannot get through 

 the grates, so as to be separated from the tubers. I seldom have 

 any trouble at the season of year I dig. The digger works 

 like this : A broad steel point runs under row, taking earth, 

 potatoes, vines and all, up onto an endless chain that runs 

 over a slanting grate. The grate has a motion, up and down, 

 and the earth works through this, and the chain carries the 

 tubers back to the rear where they are shaken entirely clean and 

 left on the surface in a narrow row, by a shaking grate that 

 inclines downwards. Stones and clods will go through with the 

 tubers, and hence they never can be put into boxes or sacks 

 practically. On very clean, sandy soil, this may be done after a 

 fashion. I have been a long distance to see machines that tried 

 to do this, but must advise you to give them a wide berth at 

 present. And still there is no telling what may be done in this 

 line in the future. I would not dare say potatoes will never be 

 picked up by machinery practically. 



I always dig and store as soon as they are entirely ripe, so 

 they will not hang to roots, and the skin will not slip ; in other 

 words, as soon as we can use a digger without injuring them. 

 We want to get them off so we can fit the wheat ground, but 

 they are best dug then, anyway. Why leave them in the hot 

 soil exposed, after the tops die down, to injury from light, per- 

 haps, and to the ravages of wireworms, white grubs, etc.? I 

 have never had much trouble with these pests, but am told that 

 where present they keep to work on the potatoes, and the scab is 

 said to increase. A market gardener from Cincinnati told me he 

 always had to dig his Early Ohio for seed just before they were 

 ripe, or they would be a mass of scabs in a few weeks' time. I 

 merely give this without vouching for it as to whether it is prac- 

 ticable to dig soon enough to gain much. A cool cellar is a better 

 place for the potatoes after they are ripe, or a basement stable, or 

 even a pile on the ground well covered with straw. We usually 

 dig the last of August and first few days in September. No mat- 

 ter how hot it may be, we draw right into the barn basement and 

 store about three feet deep all over. We have put in thousands 

 of bushels in this way, for years, and had no trouble. The base- 

 ment is made entirely dark, of course, by putting building paper 

 over the windows. The potatoes are stored right on the earth. 

 When short of room I have put them four feet deep, and have 

 had a pile 1 1 feet by 60 together. This is about as good a place 

 to store in until cold weather as a cellar, and handier to get 



