SECOND CROP IRISH POTATOES. 



471 



for covering corn may be used. This consists of an or- 

 dinary plow-beam and handles, with a cross-bar in front, 

 to which are attached two spike-teeth a foot apart, and 

 behind these a narrow roller. The two spikes will pull 

 in plenty of soil from the sides of the trench, and th - 

 roller will compact it. Such a coverer can easily be 

 made at home. Potatoes properly sprouted, if planter 

 this way will all be cer- 

 tain to grow, and it is 

 easy to get a good stand. 

 As the potatoes grow the 

 soil is pulled in around 

 them by running the 

 cultivator through until 

 the trench is level. 

 Cultivate only with the 

 ordinary one-horse cul- 

 tivator, and do not hill 

 up. The potatoes will 

 hen form in the deep 

 bed of mellow soil, the 

 deep furrow will tend 

 to retain moisture, and 

 the crop will be larger 

 than if grown in h 

 or ridges. 



The impor- 

 tant points to 

 observe are : 



(1) Bed the 

 seed in the 

 soil until 

 planting time, 



(2) Plant the 

 second week 

 in August, and use only 

 potatoes that are sprout- 

 ed. (3) Plant in a deep 

 furrow, but cover very 



shallow, and pack the soil to the seed. (4 

 Never cut the potatoes for the late crop, 

 whether they are large or small. (5) Grad- 

 ually fill in the soil to the plants as they grow, 

 and cultivate the crop perfectly flat. 



When grown on a small scale and in dry 

 land, after the tops are dead, clean them off 

 and throw a ridge of soil over the row by 

 throwing a furrow on each side. Cover the 

 ridges with pine-straw, and the potatoes w 

 keep there during the winter as well as any- 

 where, can be dug as wanted for the table in winter, and 

 will be found in better condition for planting at the usual 

 time than if dug in the fall. This plan cannot be well 

 practiced except on well-drained ground, and not further 

 north than central eastern North Carolina. There is a 

 story told of a North Carolina man who treated his crop 

 in this way, dug them in winter, shipped them to New 

 York and sold them for "new Bermudas " at a fancy 

 price. If the crop is dug when mature, care should be 



used to put them in a dark and cool place as soon as 

 possible. The only difficulty about keeping these pota- 

 toes in this latitude and southward is the liability to get 

 them too warm. A tight room, made totally dark, is 

 best. In this climate in such a room, with the potatoes 

 in barrels, there is no danger from freezing, for it will take 

 a drop considerably below 32' in temperature to freeze a 

 potato fully exposed, 

 and if the room 

 could be kept be- 

 tween 30^^ and 35° at 

 all times, so much 

 the better. 



Some planters pre- 

 fer to keep the pota- 

 toes in out- 

 door heaps, 

 covered with 

 pine -straw 

 and e?rth, as 

 sweet- p o t a - 

 toes are kept, 

 is a good plan, 

 provided we remem- 

 ber that the Irish 

 potato needs to be 

 kept cool, while the 

 sweet-potato wants 

 co\er enough to ex- 

 clude not only cold 

 b u t moisture. In 

 putting Irish pota- 

 toes in hills, I prefer 

 to put not more than 

 ten bushels in a 

 heap ; cover them at 

 once with soil, and 

 then cover with 

 pine-straw or corn-stalks to keep 

 the soil' from freezing. I think 

 they will be found to keep better 

 in this way than if the pine-straw 

 is put over first, as we do with 

 sweet-potatoes. 



The importance of this late crop 

 of potatoes to the south can hard- 

 ly be overestimated. Its use has 

 already made our growers, to a 

 large extent, independent of the 

 purchase of northern potatoes for 

 planting the early crop ; for it is found that these late 

 potatoes, being so short a time out of the ground, are un- 

 sprouted at our planting time, and grow with greater 

 vigor than the northern seed. 



The potato, it must be remembered, is only an under- 

 ground stem, or, rather, a collection of stems, around 

 which the plant has stored large quantities of starch for 

 food to sustain future growth. The eyes of the potato 

 are the terminal buds of the branches which traverse this 



I'LVESTRiS (Page 



