DIGGING POTATOES. 329 



from the North will ripen in a given latitude at an earlier day 

 than one brought from the South and accustomed to a longer 

 period for maturing. Facts seem to favor this change of seed, 

 and facts are stubborn things. The subject needs further inves- 

 tigation. 



The time of digging must depend upon circumstances. If 

 the crop is designed for winter and spring use, and the soil is 

 dry, we should prefer to let the potatoes lie in the ground till 

 the weather is cool enough to allow ^them to be immediately 

 stored in the cellar. But if the soil is moist and the crop 

 shows a tendency to rot, it should be dug as soon as mature, 

 and placed on some dry knoll, scattering with every half dozen 

 bushels a quart of fresh-slacked lime. Over the pile the potato 

 vines may be thrown, and over the whole a few inches of dry 

 soil in a conical form, making a pit much like the charcoal pit. 

 The lime checks the tendency to rot, and we have never known 

 potatoes thus treated to fail of keeping well. Some recommend 

 charcoal dust instead of lime, and we presume it is useful, as it 

 is an antiseptic ; but we cannot recommend it from personal 

 experience. When the weather becomes cool the potatoes can 

 be removed to the cellar or taken to market. 



By all means dig in dry weather, and store the potatoes away 

 as dry as possible, with but little exposure to the sun. The skin 

 of the potato is of a corky nature, impervious to water, and de- 

 signed to keep external moisture from the potato and the inter- 

 nal moisture from evaporation, and if too long exposed to wet 

 will sometimes rot, when the tuber must perish. A well-ripened 

 potato, put up dry in the fall, will lose little weight during the 

 winter, its skin preventing evaporation as effectually as does the 

 tight cork of a bottle. In the warm weather of summer the 

 starch is converted into sugar and slowly evaporates through 

 the pores of the skin. 



All cutting and bruising of potatoes must be carefully avoided. 

 They must be treated as things of life, and not like the stones 

 which can be tossed about without sensation. Every cut and 

 every bruise increases the tendency to decay. The potato may 

 not be quite as sensitive as the apple, and may stand more hard 

 thwacks ; but still every bruise breaks the cellular tissue and 

 puts the vitality of the tuber to a hard test. The digging must 

 not be entrusted to careless boys, or the potatoes will look sadly 



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