THE farmer’s manual. 
87 
Your haying being closed ; your oat harvest secur- 
ed; your cross-ploughing finished; your early plant- 
ed potatoes will now claim your attention. Your white, 
and yellow potatoes, are first ripe; take them belore 
the vine is entirely dead, and haul them out of the 
hills with a three-tined hook- fork : in this state, they 
will generally adhere to the vines, and by one stroke 
of the fork, the hill will be nearly cleared ; but if you 
suffer your potatoes to stand until your vines are dead, 
the coats of the yellow, and white potatoes, will soon 
begin to rust, and grow defective ; they will also sever 
from the vines, and the expense of digging with the 
hoe, nearly, or quite doubled. To save expense and 
labour, is ready money, in all business ; but in farrahig, 
it is ready money with interest, because it saves time, 
which is more valuable to the farmer, who is engaged 
about his farm, than money. 1 can say from my own 
knowledge, that one man, with such a fork as above, 
can throw out of the hill, after two hoeings, and when 
the vines are partly green, more than 100 bushels of 
potatoes in a day ; but how many the same man could 
dig with the hoe in the same time, I have no knowledge. 
Your potatoes should be gathered, and housed, as 
soon as dry, to preserve them from injury, from cat- 
tle, and the weather. Your early potatoes generally 
command a good market, and a fair price ; but one of 
your b§g^t markets is your hog-stye. The value ot 
this ro* when boiled and mixed with bran, corn, or 
oat-meal, and given to hogs to bring them forward to 
fatten, may be fairly estimated at 2s. or 2s6 the bushel. 
Gather your potatoe-vines, coarse hay, and stout 
stubble, and fill your hog-pens. Cart in turf, and 
other rich earths, and cover the vegetables in your 
hog-pens ; the great heat, and warm rains in dog-days, 
will bring your manure forward fast. Spare neither 
time nor expense; it will prove a rich mine. 
Flax and Hemp. 
Your flax next claims your attention ; this, if you de- 
sign it for the nicest domestic manufacture, you will 
