The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1906-08-02
Handling Sweet Potatoes.


Some months ago I said I would
give my plan to keep sweet potatoes.
take a turn pillow and drag off the
vines, barring them off shallow, at
the same time blowing them up with
the same pillow, going deep enough
not to cut them. In this way it
throws them out, so they can be
found without much trouble. Put
three rows together, being careful
not to pitch them so far as to bruise
them against one another. Then 1
take small sacks fcorn or meal feed
sacks) and go W the rows and
pick up the large ones. Two hands
to the sack. In this way they will
not be bruised, the sack not being
too full.
Then go back and take up the
paintings, in the same way, filling
the sack full as can be andled. They,
being small, will not bruise like the
large ones Let the sacks be small
and slazy just SO they will hold to
place for the hill. Set five or six of
the sacks in the hill, these being the
s%orriest ones with no kainit or salt
about them-though J. have used
kainit sacks where they had been
washed by rains or hand. Then
form the hill around the hill sacks
that l set in the middle with loose
potatoes and on top. This shapes up
my hill. The sacks give ventilation.
1 hill on high, elevated land, if I
can, where it is deep sand, putting
straw about two inches deep, dirt
about the same, leaving a place on
top about as large as my hat with no
dirt. Have the straw about four
inches thick right on the top, then
make a hole with my hand through
to the potatoes and leave them so all
winter. 1 can go along every day
and run my hand in and see if my
potatoes are sound or not.
Then 1 go to work and build a
shelter over them to keep the dirt
dry. I built my shelter some years
ago and have used it ever since. By
dry year in and year out. In spring
remove all rotten one SO as not to
infest the land with the rot. My
shelter is ten fret wide, shsrty-tWo
feet long, four feet high a3hlrA ana
seven in front, fronting the east,
boarding up the back and north end,
edge to edge front and south end
just enough to keep out the stack,
knocking down the front for killing
and taking up. 1 take off about two
behind to get dirt to hill or throw
out in taking up paintings.
Well, let's go back to- the field. |
Now I use a one-horse wagon with
Oody on. 1 don't put them in like
they are rocks or corn. | set them
in with care not to bruise and go to
the hill and pour them out as careful
as I can. Now in this way I have
handled my potatoes as few times as
it can well be done.
Dig after first frost, a fair day and
let dry good.
AS to marketing potatoes, well,
I'm not a big farmer, and I know
there are others that q write more
interestingly how to cultivate than 1
can, but if this does not go to the
waste basket I may try to say M
IuIuS ldLSE dDOuL CulIlFdIluS IuGuu.
I sold a few potatoes last year that
I kept up with-126 bushels. They
brought me 500. I got them Off
about an acre; fed the small ones to ,
my hogs. I have sold this year les
bushels for SIS.
1 handle my potatoes N bushel
to the sack, then have no trouble any
more to measure them where my GUS
toner wants a bushel. /
l have them clean and not skinned
up and good measure.
Now, reader, if you try next year
to raise potatoes, don't try to plant
your whole crop of potatoes and
make a failure like the man 1 saw
mentioned in the Progressive Farmer
some years g did, and say your
land won't make them.-D. Powell,
Rocky Mount, y. c., in the Progress
sive Farmer.