igo Our Farming. 



potatoes out. They can be kept well in piles out doors, but it is 

 more work and not as handy to load for market afterwards. We 

 always sell before winter, usually in October. As we are situated 

 this is wisest. We are too far from market to handle them in 

 winter or spring. In the long run we get the most out of them 

 to sell when the roads are good, in the fall, and save further 

 shrinkage and risk and interest. Once in a while we might 

 make by holding, but sometimes we would lose practically the 

 entire crop. I have seen potatoes so low in the spring that they 

 would not pay for marketing, when the fall before they would sell 

 so as to pay cost of production and 50 per cent, profit. Last week 

 (June) car loads of old potatoes were offered in Cleveland to any 

 one who would pay the freight, without finding buyers. This is 

 slaughter, and I will never take any such risk. If you have no 

 room in 'doors and want to dig and store potatoes outside, put 

 about fifty bushels in a round heap and cover with straw. Begin 

 by placing a layer of forkfuls around base of pile, then another 

 layer a little higher up and lapping down over first, and so on up, 

 capping well with straw on top. Put a little earth on top to hold 

 last forkful. I have covered many a pile in this way so it shed 

 rain perfectly. You must either use a good deal of straw or put 

 on a little earth to keep the light out. Three inches of earth will 

 do, and there should be none on the top except a shovelful to hold 

 the last forkful of straw. Light will soon injure the quality of 

 potatoes. Be sure you do not leave potatoes covered with straw 

 only after frosty nights begin. Straw is not much protection 

 from cold unless there is some earth over it. I had some potatoes 

 frozen once the 1 6th of October, through a good coat of straw 

 and vines. Farmers often complain of its being such a job to 

 put potatoes in the cellar and take them out again. Well, that 

 depends. In my old house cellar it was. In my new one, eight 

 feet deep, and an easy stairway to walk out with a basket on my 

 shoulder and no danger of hitting top of door, I do not mind the 

 job very much. One fall we stored a car load or two in the cellar 

 of house (we have room there for 2,000 bushels on a pinch) and 

 as many more in piles on a dry hill covered with straw and a 

 little earth. I sold them late in the fall (first good offer) to one 

 man in Akron, twelve miles aw r ay. I had paid off my man and 

 had no help, and loaded and drew all those potatoes alone. I 

 found those cold mornings that it was far easier and pleasanter to 

 shovel up and carry out a load from my cellar, than to pick up 

 one from the heap and put into wagon standing close by. Now 

 we have plenty of barn room ; this is better than storing in the 

 cellar, as they do not have to be brought up stairs to load them. 

 Sooner than store large quantities in a cellar temporarily, I would 

 put up a building on purpose to put them in with a ground floor, 

 ten or twelve feet high would answer, and I would board up with 

 matched flooring outside and in. I have just such a building, 



