4(}8 PLOUGH UP POTATOES. 



nothing else), one to eight or ten women, to take 

 the skeps to the carts. The furrow being picked, I 

 used, many years ago, to work it by men with three- 

 pronged forks, each with a woman, or boy, to pick 

 up the roots ; but finding this expensive, I contrived a 

 diagonal harrow in a shim beam, with 2 or 3 teeth, drawn 

 by one horse, which tears the furrow in pieces, and 

 lays bare the mass of the crop : the won} en then pick 

 again ; and another common cross-harrowing, with a 

 second ploughing and harrowing, all three attended 

 with two women to each plough, will finish the 

 business, and clean the roots .all away ; so that I 

 have found the pigs, when let in, make but very 

 poor gleanings. The use of the little harrow saved 

 me from 14s. to 2Os. per acre in labour. 



The best way of storing the roots, is in what arc 

 called potatoe pies. A trench, one foot deep and six 

 feet wide, is dug, and the earth clean shovelled out, 

 and laid on one side : this has a bedding of straw, and 

 the one-horse carts shoot down the potatoes into the 

 trench ; women pile them up about three feet high, 

 in the shape of a house-roof; straw is then carefully 

 laid on six or eight inches thick, and covered with 

 earth a foot thick, neatly smoothed by flat strokes 

 of the spade. In this method I never lost any by the 

 severest frosts ; but, in case of its freezing with un- 

 common severity, another coat of straw over all, 

 gives absolute security. 



These pies, when opened, should each be quite 

 cleared, or they are liable to depredation. To receive 

 one at a time, b- uh s nho being at first filled for im- 

 mediate use, I have a house that holds about 70O 



bushel s> 



