Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-09-06
HARVESTING POTATOES.

The harvesting and storing of the po-
tatO crop is an important matter,
hence practical suggestions on the sub
ject can hardly fail to prove useful. A
very common mistake is the one of de-
laying the harvesting of the tubers until
too late. The tops have been dead some
weeks, a copious growth of weeds has
taken their place, the ground has be-
come muddy with autumn rains, and
the potatoes when thrown out are more
or less covered with mud. They are
then, muddy as they are, thrown into
the cellar or piled in heaps, out of doors,
to be covered with straw and earth as
protection against the freezing cold of
winter. The mud which adheres to
them tends to increase the tendency to
rot, which is further fastened by the
warm autumn days.
A better plan, says Country Gentleman,
is to dig the crop before the fall rains
have reduced the soil to mud, and if pos
sible before the rot has commenced its
work of destruction. For this purpose
early maturing sorts, as for instance the
Ohio and Hebron, have the advantage
over later varieties. Being clean and
dry, they may be placed on broad slat-
ted floor on the north or cool side of
an outhouse, so situated that the air can
circulate freely from below and pass up
through the potatoes. They should not
be placed in two large masses, so as to
Obstruct ventilation. Crops which would
rot badly in wet ground, would not Sc
riouSly suffer if properly treated in this
way. In some unfavorable seasons, when
more than half the crop was ruined by
rotting when dug, the selected and sound
remainder, thoroughly cleaned and placed
on such Slated floor, has nearly or en-
tirely ceased from decay, SO that not one
bushel in thirty has suffered. 1t is very
Important, however, that the work be
done thoroughly and in the best manner,
for if carelessly performed it would be
of comparatively little use.
When cold weather approaches the
tubers are either removed to the cellar
intended for them or turned out of doors
in heaps or pits. When buried, they
must be protected from the adverse inf
fuences of light and frost and means o.
ventilation supplied.
To return to the Slated floors. Their
effect would be more perfect if the
apartments of which they form the floor
were separate from the rest of the build
ing by non conducting walls, and access
to the windows. During the heat of
warm days these shutters should be
closed, but opened on cool nights for
the admission of cold air In this way
the temperature may be kept low all the
time, and the danger of rotting lessened
in autumn or winter, and premature
sprouting prevented in the warm wealth
er of spring. These views naturally
suggested storage house such as many
large growers build.
When small quantities of potatoes are
kept in cellars, and only for family use,
the authority quoted from suggests that
the vegetable apartment in which they
are stored must be kept separate from
all the other apartments the one
IOl lulO, VI AOl utth VI lOl
furnace coal-and be so situated that by
closing or opening windows uniformly
low temperature may be secured. A
convenient place for storing in cellars is
in large oblong boxes holding twenty
bushels, more or less, having Slated bot
toms, and raised several inches from the
cement floor Potatoes do not dry and
shrivel so readily as apples, and the
basement should not be a wet apartment
nor dirty one. 1t is hardly necessary
to add that wherever they are stored,
they are to be kept from the light with
thin covering of straw or coarse sack
ing.
Those who would succeed with pota-
toes should remember the essential requi-
sites of harvesting early, before the ad-
vent of mud and the rot, handling care
fully to prevent bruising, preserving the
tubers clean and providing sufficient
ventilation, whether in heaps or out
doors or in cellars or apartments.