Harvesting the Potato Crop. 191 



only it is under my main barn, and opens at one end into my 

 covered yard; which, makes it very handy to load and unload tinder 

 cover. Where one is situated so as to sell right from field as he 

 digs, it is quite a saving in handling, as well as in shrinkage. 

 We cannot do this and get our wheat in in time. But we never 

 take out of the barn as many bushels as we put in. Potatoes will 

 never again weigh or measure as many bushels as just before they 

 are dead ripe. If not dug until some time after, and stored where 

 it is cool, they will not shrink any large amount for a month or 

 two. The heaviest shrinkage conies just as they are ripening. 

 Last fall we put in 300 measured bushels by themselves just as 

 early as it would do to dig and store them. They were not yet 

 dead ripe and dry and tough. We took out towards winter just 

 284^4 bushels. This was mostly shrinkage, although there were 

 a few poor ones thrown out. Sold from the field we would have 

 saved five bushels of shrinkage to the hundred. Sell as early as 

 you can at same price. Late years we can hardly ever sell by the 

 car load until later than we dig, and the price is apt to be better 

 in October than August. 



But here I am getting them all stored before picking up ! 

 One more switch off about bushel boxes and then we will go into 

 the field. I had not been growing potatoes many years and fig- 

 uring to reduce the cost of production, before it became clear to 

 me that it was costing too much to handle the crop. We dug 

 and picked up in baskets and carried them to heaps to cover, which 

 made lots of tramping and hard work carrying. Or we dug and 

 picked up in baskets and emptied into a wagon drawn along by 

 a team. This was costly, if one had other work for team to do. 

 Then we went to cellar with the wagon and shoveled them up 

 into baskets and emptied them. This took a good deal of time. 

 At last I was driven to study up a bushel box to handle them in. 

 We have used them many years. We can handle the crop for 

 about half the cost. They are a good thing for potatoes or apples. 

 Learning from me, thousands of others are now using them. We 

 made them just long enough so two would set end to end across 

 our three-foot wagon box. They are 13 x 13 x 16 inches inside, 

 with hand holes in the ends. The ends are five-eighths inch thick 

 and sides and bottoms, three -eighths. They should be made of 

 light wood, so as to not weigh any more than is necessary. They 

 are iron bound on the corners and hold a good bushel of potatoes 

 without being a bit more than an easy level full. Thus they can 

 be stood one on top of another and not bruise the top potatoes. 

 Strictly speaking, this figures a little more than a bushel, but 

 practically it comes just about right, as we want to fill rather 

 slack rather than the least bit rounding. If you do round them 

 up, or place them nice on top, you will get in more than a bushel, 

 usually. The first hundred I got made cost me $30, but they 

 are made better now by machinery, and sold by A. I. Root, of 



