Dec. 
THE CULTl VATOR. 
ditch is nearly on a level. The character of the stone 
used also controls the width. If there is plenty of 
Jlat stone, a much narrower cut will answer as shown in 
in the Illustrated Register 1859. See also an article 
in The Cultivator for March last, p. 92. 
A brush drain may sometimes be made cheaply; 
and where the digging is very easy, and the quantity 
of water small and the descent rapid, it answers a good 
purpose for many years. 
-O- 
Pitting Potatoes and other Roots. 
Messrs. Editors —Potato harvesting being now at 
hand, a few suggestions may not be out of place on 
that important operation, as a great many are lost by 
not being properly stored. Potatoes should be dug in 
dry weather. When dry, put them in heaps six feet 
wide, and as high as they will run, covering them 
with straw or any dry material. This is to sweat them. 
Let them remain in this pit (as it is generally called,) 
for ten days or a fortnight, after which sort them care¬ 
fully, keeping the large and small separate. This is 
important. If they are put up together, the small 
ones will rot from the heat of the large ones; they, 
not being ripe, are liable to rot; consequently cause 
the large ones to rot. 
When pitting them, if they are not dry and perfectly 
ripe, quick lime should be well sprinkled among them 
when put in permanent pits. Mark your ground three 
feet wide ; then throw earth on this about three inches 
thick, which elevates the foundation above the surface ; 
beat this well with the back of the spade to harden it; 
then lay on lime an inch thick. It is a general prac¬ 
tice to lay straw under the potatoes. This in all cases 
should be avoided, as the straw, from the moisture of 
the earth and potatoes, becomes wet; the potatoes lay¬ 
ing on this will rot, or commence growing if it should 
in the least heat. You then commence laying on your 
potatoes, bringing them up so as to get but one potato 
in width on the top. You then lay on them a foot, or 
more of dry straw; then commence at the bottom of 
the potatoes to lay the earth on, two feet thick all 
around, drawing it in at the top to eighteen inches- 
This should then be covered with boards, (in case of 
rain,) and let stand for three or four days to allow the 
steam to pass off. I should have remarked that, in 
covering with the earth, you must tramp it down so 
that there will be no chance of its cracking or settling. 
When you get to the top and finishing off, a man gets 
on the top with a spade, and as the earth is thrown to 
him, he forms the top by rounding it and beating the 
mould well down. 
After the pit is completely frozen, take leaves and 
cover it over from one to two feet deep. To keep these 
on the pit, lay some coarse grass, straw, branches, or 
any thing to prevent them blowing off. The advantage 
of this mode of keeping potatoes consists in the air 
being excluded, and your potatoes in the spring come 
out of such heaps as fresh as when they were stored ; 
whereas when they are put in a cellar where the air 
acts on them, in the spring they are soft, and will not 
command the price that pitted potatoes will. 
In pitting ruta bagas, carrots, mangold wurzel, &c , 
you can with safety allow them to be four feet wide at 
bottom, drawing them to a head as potatoes; they 
should not be more than four feet. I have tried them 
at five, but found they heated, and was obliged to 
take them down. By covering them with straw six 
inches, fifteen inches of earth will be sufficient. 
On the top of these pits, in closing up, there should 
be chimneys left every ten feet apart. This is done by 
placing a sheaf of straw on the Btraw that covers the 
bulbs, and filling the earth around it to the level of the 
pit top, letting it stand all the winter. This allows all 
the moisture to pass off, and prevents their heating. 
These pits require no outside covering like potatoes. 
If they should get a little frost it will not injure them. 
They also should be stored in dry weather. If your 
roots get frozen, by throwing them into cold water for 
a short time it will draw it all out. There is no time 
lost in this, as they should in all cases be washed or 
scraped clean before feeding, either raw or boiled. 
Gerald Howatt. Newton , N. J. 
Solution of Bones in Sulphuric Acid. 
AN ERROR CORRECTED. 
Messrs Editors —In your article on “Composts— 
Muck and Dissolved Bones,” which appeared in the 
Country Gentleman of the 23d of September, a state¬ 
ment is made in relation to the solvent powers of sul¬ 
phuric acid on bones, which experience does not war¬ 
rant, and which should be corrected for the benefit of 
those who may desire to prepare the valuable compost 
recommended. 
The statement was copied by you from Mr. Brown’s 
article on Muck, in the Patent Office Report for 
1856, and is as follows : 
“ Bones may readily be brought into forms of paste 
by applying five pounds of sulphuric acid to every 100 
pounds of bone. If the bones have been ground, half 
this quantity will be sufficient.” 
Mr. Brown could not, I am satisfied, have tried this 
himself, but must have taken it from some work upon 
agriculture, and in copying made a mistake as to the 
quantity of acid necessary. Prof. Norton recommends 
the use of from 50 to 60 pounds of acid to every hun¬ 
dred pounds of bones, when whole bones are used, and 
from 25 to 45 pounds of acid to the hundred of bone 
dust. If just enough acid is used to decompose the 
whole of the bone phosphate in the bones, about thirty 
pounds of acid to the hundred pounds of bones would 
be necessary ; but in this case all writers agree in say¬ 
ing that the bones must be ground Jine. Five pounds 
of acid, to which has been added two or three times its 
volume of water, would scarely wet the bones, much 
less reduce them to a paste ; and ten pounds of acid 
and water, the quantity recommended for one hund- 
dred pounds of ground bones, would not wet the mass 
at all. 
But Mr. Brown, in common with the lamented Prof. 
Norton, and various other writers, has fallen into a 
grave error in supposing that whole bones can be re¬ 
duced at .all by sulphuric acid. The structure of the 
bone is too close for the acid to penetrate into the in¬ 
terior, and therefore its action is confined to the sur¬ 
face, making the process very slow—too slow for prac¬ 
tical purposes. A simple trial will prove the truth of 
what I say. I have tried it repeatedly, and speak 
from my own knowledge. On one occasion I took some 
bones that had been picked up about the yard, broke 
them into pieces of from two to four inches in length, 
and treated them to the quantity of sulphuric acid re¬ 
commended by Prof. Norton. I turned over and ex¬ 
amined the mixture from day to day, and from week 
