THE SOUTHERN 



PLANTER. 



401 



[For the Southern Planter. 



How to Kaise and keep Irish Potatoes. 



Nomony Grove, T 

 Westm'd Co., Va., May 22, 1857. j 



Mr. Editor: 



In compliance with the request made in 

 the May No. of the Southern Planter, for 

 information in regard to the raising of 

 Irish potatoes, I will give you my practice 

 in the cultivation and keeping of that 

 crop. I will here say that long or unrot- 

 ted manures should never be applied to 

 late potatoes, as the fermenting state of 

 the manure will either kill or prevent the 

 vegetation of the potatoes. The most 

 successful plan I have ever tried has been 

 on very poor land, which would not bring 

 five bushels of corn per acre without 

 manure. 



It is my custom in March or April to 

 fallow up the land designed for late pota- 

 toes with a double horse plough, and 

 should the grass commence growing, 

 which it some times does, I replough in 

 May or June, for the purpose of keeping 

 the grass out of the land. I then harrow 

 with a heavy harrow, and the first season 

 I get after the twentieth of June, I usu- 

 ally plant, but prefer planting after that 

 time, as the later they are planted the 

 more abundant the crop, even as late as 

 the first of August. 



I lay off the land in three foot rows, and 

 bed it up in ridges, as is the custom with 

 some, or the most of the farmers with 

 us, as we do for corn. I then split it as 

 deep as can be done with a plough ; in the 

 split bed I sow from two hundred and fifty 

 to three hundred pounds of Peruvian 

 guano per acre, drop the potatoes from 

 ten to twelve inches apart and cover them 

 with the plow by running a furrow on each 

 side, leaving them covered from five to 

 six inches deep in the earth. There is 

 the secret why so many failures are made 

 in getting potatoes to come up ; they are 

 covered so shallow the heat of the sun 

 causes them either to rot or perish. It is 

 a hard*matter to get a good stand of pota- 

 toes late in the season when they are cut ; 

 and the best plan I have ever tried with 

 cut potatoes, is to cut them several days be- 

 fore we wish to plant, roll them in plaster 

 and spread them thin on the floor of a cel- 

 lar, where they will be kept cool, and will 

 not injure for several weeks, until a season 

 26 



shall come when they will be in readiness 

 for planting. Last year the drought was 

 so intense with us, we did not have rain 

 enough to plant until the eighth of July, 

 and then the land was not wet more than 

 three or four inches. I prepared the land, 

 cut and planted on the same day. We did 

 not have any rain for a month after that, 

 which caused a large portion of my pota- 

 toes planted to rot, having been planted so 

 soon after cutting, which they will always 

 do unless there is a good rain soon after 

 planting, or there is a sufficient amount of 

 moisture in the earth to start the potatoes 

 at once to growing. 



As it regards the keeping of potatoes i 

 beg leave to differ with the contributor to 

 the Planter. I think it is much easier to 

 keep them than it is to raise them. There 

 are but few things requisite to be observed 

 in keeping them as well in Virginia as any 

 where else. Dig them when the earth is 

 dry, do not suffer them to remain long in 

 the field after they become dry, put them 

 in a dry warm cellar, or one where they 

 will not be exposed to cold air. Keep the 

 cellar dark, as light is injurious to the fla- 

 vor of Irish potatoes, and as soon as freez- 

 ing weather sets in, cover them sufficient- 

 ly thick with straw to prevent freezing, 

 and no one will have any cause of com- 

 plaint about their potatoes not keeping in 

 any part of Virginia which I have ever 

 visited yet. If any one who may see this 

 should not have suitable cellars, he may 

 keep them, as I have known them kept, 

 in hills in the field, by selecting a piece of 

 ground where the water will not settle. — 

 Pile the potatoes in a round hill as high as 

 you can get them, then cove? with straw, 

 and on that pile the earth until there is a 

 sufficient cover of earth and straw to keep 

 the potatoes from freezing, and in the spring 

 I have seen them taken out as fresh and as 

 well flavoured as when put there. 



The potatoes I raised last year were as 

 fine as I ever saw grown any where. I 

 raised three different kinds, the Mercer, 

 the Brimstone, and a large red variety 

 brought a few years past from some of the 

 West Indies. This last named potatoe is. 

 is not of as good flavor as the Mercer, but 

 the most productive kind I have ever seen. 

 I weighed one which weighed something 

 over three pounds, it was quite a curiosity 

 for its shape. I have been in the habit of 

 raising potatoes for the purpose of fatten- 



