Keeping and Storing Fruits and Vegetables. 1 1 1 



Sweet-pOtatoes, continued. 



layers, in dry sand, and store in a warm cellar. They are 

 sometimes stored in finely broken charcoal, in charcoal-dust, 

 wheat-chaff and similar substances. 



Sometimes they are kept in small and open crates, with- 

 out packing-material, the crates being stacked so as to allow 

 thorough ventilation. The Hayman or Southern Queen keeps 

 well in this way. 



A warm attic is often a good place in which to store sweet- 

 potatoes. A tight room over a kitchen is particularly good 

 when it is so arranged that the heat from the kitchen can be 

 utilized in warming it. 



Ix the South (Berckmans).— Digging the tubers should 

 be delayed until the vines have been sufficiently touched by 

 frost to check vegetation. Allow the potatoes to dry off in 

 the fieid, which will take but a few hours. Then sort all 

 those of eating-size to be banked separately from the smaller 

 ones. The banks are prepared as follows : Make a circular 

 bed six feet in diameter, in a sheltered corner of the garden, 

 throwing up the earth about a foot high. Cover this with 

 straw and bank up the tubers in shape of a cone, using from 

 10 to 20 bushels to each bank. A triangular pipe made of 

 narrow planks to act as a ventilator should be placed in the 

 middle of the cone. Cover the tubers with straw 6 to 10 

 inches thick and bank the latter with earth, first using only 

 a small quantity, but increasing the thickness a week or ten 

 days afterwards. A board should be placed upon the top of 

 the ventilating-pipe to prevent water from reaching the 

 tubers. Several banks are usually made in a row, and a 

 rough shelter of boards built over the whole. The main 

 point to be considered in putting up sweet-potatoes for winter 

 is entire freedom from moisture and sufficient covering to 

 prevent heating. It is therefore advisable to allow the 

 tubers to undergo sweating (which invariably occurs after 

 being put in heaps) before covering them too much; and if 

 the temporary covering is removed for a few hours, a week 

 after being heaped, the moisture generated will be removed 

 and very little difficulty will follow from that cause. If 

 covered too thickly at once, the sweating often engenders 



