204 O UF Farming. 



in the cellar you can, at least, put them in tight barrels, and cover 

 tightly. A circulation of air through them is injurious. You 

 cannot do worse than spread in bins, a foot or so deep, in a light 

 cellar, unless you spread thinner. Our house cellar is arranged 

 with three rooms. We go down into one that is always light 

 enough for one to see fairly well. There are doors into the other 

 rooms where potatoes are kept, and over the windows are curtains 

 of thick black cloth. These are so hung that when you open a 

 door you can put up your hand and pull a string and open a cur- 

 tain and let in light, and shut it out when you get through. The 

 plan is simple. The curtain is nailed on across the top of sash. 

 Then it is nailed to a rather heavy stick at the bottom the stick 

 on the inside. The string is attached to the middle of this stick 

 at one end, and to a nail 6^ feet high on opposite door casing. 

 Put another nail six inches lower in casing, and, as you pull, down 

 on string to open the curtain, pass it over this nail, and it holds 

 it open a little until you go out and slip the string off of the lower 

 nail. The weight of the bottom stick holds the heavy cloth down 

 against the sash closely. We have it arranged also so we can 

 open and shut the windows by a string from the doorway, when 

 the room is full of potatoes. We have been using this simple plan 

 for nine years, and it is complete. The cellar is always dark, 

 except when you want it light, and it is no trouble to manage the 

 light. Articles not injured by light are kept in the light room. 

 The other rooms were built expressly for storing potatoes, 

 although we seldom use them, as we have one cellar room in the 

 barn 13 x 30 feet, and do not intend to hold potatoes over winter. 

 But we are arranged so we can. Now and then a year, when the 

 barn gets overloaded, we have to put a few hundred bushels in the 

 house cellar temporarily. They can be wintered in large quanti- 

 ties, piled right on floor four feet deep ; but, if early potatoes for 

 seed that I wished to keep from sprouting as long as possible, I 

 would build a temporary board floor, with cracks in it, six inches 

 above cellar bottom, and board around sides in same way. Then 

 put in the potatoes. You can then let cold air in, under and 

 around them, and two or three tubes, a foot square, running up 

 through the heap would help, also. You could thus cool pile 

 down to a lower temperature than it would get from a cellar bot- 

 tom. This has the temperature of the earth, seldom below 50 in 

 a deep, large cellar. Fixed as I have stated, you can cool them 

 down to 34 , and hold them there during cold weather, by spend- 

 ing time enough. It would be well to cover the top with blan- 

 kets, old carpets, etc., to prevent sudden chilling. Cold air let 

 into the cellar will settle to the bottom, you know, and pass under 

 the pile, and cut them off from the warmth from below. Being 

 for seed, exposure to light will not matter. I had rather they 

 were not exposed to air, but one cannot well cool a large mass 

 without. I have cooled 800 bushels in a body in this way, but 



