Book VI. THE POTATO. 851 



per acre of additional tubers will be produced. The experiments are related in the second volume of 

 The Horticultural Transactions, and the practice is similar to one common among the growers of bulbous 

 roots in Holland, as alluded to by Dr. Darwin, who also recommends its application to the potato. A 

 woman or boy will crop the blossoms from an acre of potatoes in a day, or even in less time, when the 

 crop is not excessively luxuriant. 



5338. The taking of the crop of potatoes on a small scale is generally performed with 

 the spade or three-pronged fork ; but under judicious farm management, and the row- 

 culture, by the common plough. 



5339. The coulter is removed and the plough goes first along one side of all the ridgelets of a ridge, or 

 any convenient breadth, and then, when the potatoes so brought to view are gathered by women placed at 

 proper distances, it returns and goes along the other side. When the land is somewhat moist, or of a 

 tenacious quality, the furrow-slice does not give out the roots freely, and a harrow which follows the 

 plough is commonly employed to break it and separate them from the mould. Various contrivances have 

 been resorted to for this purpose. A circular harrow or break, of very recent invention, to be attached to 

 the plough, has been found to answer the purpose well, and to effect a considerable saving of labour. A 

 machine for taking up and collecting potatoes is said to have been invented by Mr. Michael Barry of 

 Swords near Dublin ; but though we have written to that gentleman, we have been unable to jirocure a 

 description or drawing of his invention. 



5340. A mode qf taking part of a crop suited to cottagers and others, especially in years of scarcity, 

 deserves to be mentioned. Having ascertained that some of the tubers have attained an eatable size, go 

 along the rows and loosen the earth about each plant with a blunt stick, taking two or three of the largest 

 tubers from each and returning the earth carefully. By keeping the edge of the blunt spatula or spade 

 perpendicular to the main stem of the plant, the flat side will be parallel to the radiating roots, by which 

 means they will be comparatively little injured. By this means both an early supply, and the advantage 

 of two crops, maybe obtained ; for the tubers which remain will increase in size, having now the nourish- 

 ment destuied to complete the growth of those removed. 



5341. Potatoes intended for seed should be taken up a fortnight or three weeks before being fully ripe, 

 for reasons that have been given in treating of early potatoes, and will be recurred to in treating of the 

 diseases of this plant. The ill shaped, small, bruised, or diseased tubers should be laid aside, and the 

 fairest and best dried in the sun, spread on a cellar or loft floor, and covered with ashes, or chaff of suf. 

 ficient thickness to keep out the frost. In this state they may remain till wanted for cutting. Some 

 persons in Ireland plant potatoes from which they intend to procure sets extremely late, namely, the first 

 week in July. The produce consequently never attains the same degree of size or ripeness as that of an 

 earlier planted crop. 



5342. Potatoes are stored and preserved in houses, cellars, pits, pies, and camps. What- 

 ever mode is adopted, it is essential that the tubers be perfectly dry, otherwise they are 

 certain of rotting, and a few rotten potatoes will contaminate a whole mass. 



5343. The most effectual mode, and that which is generally adopted, consists in putting them into close 

 houses, and covering them well up with dry straw. In some parts of Scotland it is a common practice to 

 dig pits in the potato-field, when the soil is dry and light, and, putting in potatoes to the depth of three or 

 four feet, to lay a little dry straw over them, and then cover them up with earth, so deep that no frosts can 

 affect them. Another method, which is practised in England as well as Scotland, is to put them together 

 in heaps, and cover them up with straw, in the manner of preserving turnips, with this addition, that the 

 heaps are afterwards well covered with earth, and so closely packed together as to exclude frost. The 

 farmers in Lancashire in the course of taking them up sort and separate their potatoes according to their 

 sizes, and are particularly careful to throw aside all those that are spoiled before raising, or that are cut in 

 the taking up. This is a very necessary and proper precaution (although by no means generally attended 

 to), as the crop must have a much better chance for keeping, than when diseased or cut potatoes are stored 

 up with it. It is also of great advantage to have the work performed in a dry season, as the potatoes 

 seldom keep well when taken up wet, or when placed in any sort of repository for keeping while in that 

 state. 



5344. Potato pies, as they are called, are recommended by Young as the best mode in which potatoes 

 can be stored. A trench, one foot deep and six wide, is dug, and the earth cleanly shovelled out, and laid on 

 one side, and on the bottom of the trench is laid over them a bedding of straw. One-horse carts shoot down 

 the potatoes into the trench ; and women pile them up about three feet high, in the shapeof a house roof. 

 Straw is then carefully laid over them six or eight inches thick, and covered with earth a foot thick, neatly 

 smoothed by flat strokes of the spade. In this method he never lost any by the severest frosts ; but in 

 cases of its freezing with uncommon 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, besides also being at first filled for immediate use, he has a house that holds about 700 bushels, 

 formed of posts from fir plantations with wattled sides, against which is laid a layer of straw, and against 

 the sides exteriorly earth six. feet thick at the bottom and eighteen inches at top ; the roof flat, with a stack 

 of beans upon it This he has found frost-tight. The beans keep out the weather, he says, and yet admit 

 any steam which rises from the roots, which, if it did not escape, would rot them. 



5345. Several other modes of preserving potatoes are in use in different places. In Rutlandshire, 

 Marshal says, the method of laying up potatoes is universally that of camping them ; a method somewhat 

 similar to the above, but which requires to be described. Camps are shallow pits, rilled and ridged up as 

 a roof with potatoes ; which are covered up with the excavated mould of the pit This is a happy mean, 

 lie thinks, between burying them in deep pits and laying them upon the surface. Camps are of various 

 sizes ; being too frequently made in a long square form like a corn-rick, and of a size proportioned to the 

 quantity to be laid up. It has, however, been tbund by experience, that when the quantity is large, they 

 are liable to heat and spoil ; much damage having sometimes been sustained by this imprudence. Ex- 

 perienced campers hold that a camp should not be more than three feet wide; four feet are perhaps as 

 wide as it can be made with propriety, proportioning the length to the quantity; or, if this is very large, 

 forming a range of short ones by the side of each other. The usual depth is a foot The bottom of the 

 trench being bedded with dry straw, the potatoes are deposited, ridging them up as in measuring them 

 with a bushel. On each side of the roof long wheat straw is laid, neatly and evenly, as thatch ; and over 

 this the mould raised out of the trench is evenly spread ; making the surface firm and smooth with the 

 back of the spade. A coat of coal ashes is sometimes spread over the mould, as a still better guard against 

 frost. It is needless to observe that a camp should have a dry situation ; and that the roots ought to be 

 deposited in as dry a state as possible. These camps are tapped at the end, some bavins, or a quantity of 

 loose straw, being thrust close in the open end, as a bung or safeguard. As it is a matter of the highest 

 importance to preserve this root without spoiling during the whole year, it has been suggested, that the 

 best method yet discovered for keeping potatoes sound for the longest period, is to spread them on a dry 

 floor early in the spring, and to rub off the eyes occasionally, as they appear to have a tendency to push 

 out ; by using these precautions, Donaldson has frequently seen potatoes kept in good condition till the 

 month of June. 



5346. In Canada and Russia the potato is preserved in boxes in houses or cellars, heated when necessary 

 to a temperature one or two degrees above the freezing point by stoves. {Farm. Mag, vol. xx. p. 449.) 



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