434 Transactions of the Ajieetcan Institute. 



have learned better, and tlicj take it to the field almost as soon as 

 made. They have learned, too, that manure is much better when it 

 has lain under cov^r, as in a stable. 



Keeping Sweet PotxYtoes, 



Mr. J. B. Lyman, in answer to this question, said that a farmer in 

 New Jersey was successful by having a fire on two sides of his dining- 

 room, in which a fire was kept all winter. The roots were carefully 

 handled in digging, and some of the best specimens were wrapped in 

 paper. 



Mr. N. C. Meeker. — In the southwest where everybody raises sweet 

 potatoes, only a few keep them over winter, so great are the difficul- 

 ties. Only a few succeed, -and others buy of them for miles around. 

 Still, many try, every year, by packing in cellars, with sand, cliaff, 

 or straw, or in sleeping-rooms, kitchens, and lofts, in boxes and bar- 

 rels, packed with cloths, leaves, or other material, and about mid- 

 winter they are rotted and thrown out doors. Some of those who 

 are successful have a box-like hole in the chimney, which is on the 

 outside of the house, and which is warmed by the fire-place; but tliis 

 is expensive. Others keep in dry pits out doors ; still others, trying 

 the same methods, fail. Further south they are kept in pits, and 

 generally with better success. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter, — One of the most important directions is 

 ■to dig the potatoes before the frost kills the vines ; if dug afterward 

 they will not keep, however much care is taken. My method is to 

 ^ack in a barrel, with a hole in each head, in which is a stick, and 

 •after it is filled I withdraw the stick, which is for ventilation. First, 

 I put in a layer of shavings, then a layer of potatoes, and so on. 



Destructwe Insects. 



Mr. Joseph Treat, Yineland, IS". J. — The club ought to proclaim 

 that fruit can be raised everywhere, in spite of all insects ; that insects 

 'can be destroyed, and a new era introduced. Instead of so many 

 insects, proving that we can never get rid of them, it is their very 

 multiplicity which insures that we shall get rid of them, by making 

 it an absolute necessity that w^e should, and nature tells us how, by 

 the instincts implanted in the insects themselves. "We never should 

 have had insects in the first place if we liad not departed from nature 

 in the matter of birds. For more than 200 years we have gone on, 

 persistently cutiing away the timber everywhere, and driving the 



