74 SWEET POTATO CULTURE, 



125 bushels, more than half of them marketable pota- 

 toes. 



*' Kkeping Sweet Potatoes in Earth. — I sec in tlie 

 March number of *The Cultivator' a premium offered 

 for the best plan for preserving sweet j^otatoes. I do 

 not desire tlie premium, but will simply give your read- 

 ers my experience in a few words. 



"Just as soon as the frost has touclied the vinos I go 

 to digging, and if possible carry them to the cellar as 

 fast as plowed out, as the cellar is the only safe place 

 to keep them in in this climate. When I begin to pour 

 down, I also commence to throw dry earth over them to 

 absorb the sweat, and continue this until the potatoes 

 are all in. I put nothing else over them until the 

 weather turns freezing cold, when I throw more earth 

 over them until they are covered up entirely. A few 

 inches of this covering will suffice. In this condition I 

 let them remain until spring. I have made this a mat- 

 ter of study, and have decided that it is the potato's na- 

 ture to both grow and remain in earth." The above are 

 the views of Mr. D. D. Fleming, of Sterling, Alabama. 

 In a good, dry cellar doubiless there could be no better 

 plan than ''keeping in earth." The covering, Ave think, 

 should be increased in quite cold weather. Mr. W. A. 

 Sanford, Beech Bluff, Tennessee, also uses dry earth in 

 a dry cellar : "I keep them from one planting to an- 

 other. They keep sound all the year." 



