938 



GLEANINGS IN BKE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15. 



toes on the top of the ground, so that they 

 could all be picked up at one operation. At 

 the Omaha exposition where all the agricul- 

 tural tools known, or pretty much all, were 

 on exhibition, I selected a potato-digger ; but 

 owing to the continued and unprecedented 

 wetness we wtre never able to give the digger 

 even a fair trial. An agent for another digger 

 that had much less machinery about it thought 

 his would work all right, even if the ground 

 7vas wet ; but we had to give it up. Neither 

 one of the high priced machines did very 

 much better than our old shovel plow digger 

 that has dug all of ours for ten years past, 

 and we have loaned it to the neighbors right 

 and left, and it still does very good work. 

 One of the high-priced diggers was returned 

 to the manufacturer: the other we are to hold 

 over and test another season ; and we finally, 

 as a last resort, finished our potatoes with the 

 old digger. But rains caught us so much, 

 and heavy frosts later on, thdt we hustled them 

 into the boxes wet and muddy, and got them 

 into the cellar as best we could; and while it 

 rained we poured them from one box to an- 

 other, shook out the dirt, and got them dried 

 out sufficiently to prevent rot. But I tell you 

 we had a hustling time of it. We lost a few 

 of the New Queens in that patch up in the 

 swamp, that made a second growth, by having 

 them frozen where they stuck out of the 

 ground. We took hoes and tried to cover 

 them up before each frosty night, but some of 

 them got caught nevertheless. On account of 

 the exceeding wetness we could not get down 

 under the hills as usual, and more of the po- 

 tatoes were cut in digging than I remember 

 having any year previously. 



Now, there are several varieties of potatoes 

 that will keep over until planting- time just as 

 well where they are cut at digging-time, as 

 any of the others. We are saving out these 

 cut ones for our own planting. I have done 

 this several times, and do not see but it 

 answers just as well as any. Those that got 

 frosted by sticking out of the ground we 

 overhauled shortly after digging, and the 

 frosted parts cut off. These, too, seem to be 

 keeping all right. I see by the Ohio fanner 

 and Rural Nezv -Yorker and other agricul- 

 tural papers that many others owning high- 

 priced diggers have, like myself, been obliged 

 to dig by hand this season on account of the 

 incessant rains — at least I see they have been 

 having the same degree of wetness all through 

 York State, Ohio, and many of the neighbor- 

 ing States. 



Now, when we are obliged to dig by hand, 

 or with a cheap shovel-digger, a little calcu- 

 lation will, many times, save much expense. 

 While visiting Dr. Jaques (mentioned m our 

 previous issue) I found his men digging Early 

 Ohio potatoes on a plan that was quite expe- 

 ditious for handwork. The soil around his 

 home is very light and friable; in fact, it is an 

 ideal locality in the way of soil for market- 

 gardeners. The potatoes were dug with long- 

 handled forks having the tines pretty close 

 together, and about ihe size of those in an 

 ordinary manure-fork. The digger puts this 

 fork under the hill, takes up all the potatoes 



and soil, and turns it over. Then, without 

 stopping to stoop down to touch the potatoes 

 with his fingers, he lifts or pushes them out of 

 the soil over into the furrow between the rows 

 of potatoes. By going up one row and down 

 the next he throws the potatoes from the two 

 rows into one furrow. After ihey are dug, 

 one horse pulls a small light stoneboat be- 

 tween the rows of dug potatoes. This stone- 

 boat contains two rows of potato-boxes. Two 

 men pick the potatoes from the ground and 

 throw them into the boxes as they stand on 

 the boat. The horse is trained to move along 

 at the word of command, so as to keep the 

 boxes just opposite the potatoes. In this way 

 they do the work very expeditiously. 



The doctor was selling very nice Early Ohio- 

 potatoes, at the time of my visit, at 25 cts. a 

 bushel, while here in Ohio, at the same time, 

 good table potatoes were bringing 75 cts. A 

 good many things are grown in that beautiful 

 western soil for much less money than we 

 grow them for here at home. In our locality 

 a good many of the late potatoes are extra 

 fine and large ; but no one has succeeded in 

 getting them out of the ground, in our neigh- 

 borhood, without having them covered with 

 mud; and a good man}- also let the late pota- 

 toes push out of the ground so thej- first got 

 sunburnt and afterward frosted. Now, the 

 sunburnt or green potatoes are just as good or 

 better for planting, though a great many do 

 not seem to know it ; and even the frosted 

 ones can be utilized all right, as I have ex- 

 plained, by cutting off the soft portion, pro- 

 viding you have a variety that will not rot 

 after such treatment. You can tell only by 

 experimenting ; and I judge others have dis- 

 covered this as well as myself, for we have 

 had orders from several parties saying that, if 

 we had any Bovee's or Manum's Enormous 

 that were cut in digging, which we were going 

 to sell for seconds, they would rather have 

 them at the price of seconds than to have 

 small potatoes. 



I have not mentioned either of the machines 

 I have tested this season, because I am hardly 

 prepared to give them a recommend under 

 the circumstances, and at the same time I am 

 satisfied that both will do excellent work 

 when the soil is in the right condition; and I 

 confess that it never occurred to me, until 

 after this season's experience, that potatoes 

 might be dug with a fork when it is too wet 

 to dig them with any sort of machine. But in 

 any case if j'ou dig potatoes when the ground 

 is too wet you will have to take along a lot of 

 clay and mud ; and if there is no chance for 

 drying the potatoes in the field, you will have 

 to dry them by some means pretty promptly 

 in the cellar. A neighbor suggested building 

 a fire ; and, in fact, we tried the same thing 

 with some steam-pipes that passed through 

 one end of our cellar, but I do not think heat- 

 ing will answer at all. It just makes them 

 rot. Give them all the air you can in order ta 

 dry them out, but let the air be just as cold as 

 possible, and not freeze them. Our slatted 

 potato-boxes are not only a convenience but a 

 necessity in handling and drying out potatoes 

 under such circumstances. We have now in 



