The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1906-07-27
Handllng sweet Potatoes.

Some months ago / said / 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 1t
throws them out, so they can be
found without much trouble. Put
ahree rows together, being careful
not to pitch them so far as to bruise
them against one another. Then
take small sacks (corn or meal feed
sacks) and go over the rows and
pick up the large ones. Two hands
60 the sack. In this way they will
not be bruised, the sack not being
500 full.
Then go back and take up the
paintings, in the same way, filing
the sack full as can behandled. 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
s0rriest ones with no kainit or salt
about them though I have used
kainit sacks where they had been
washed by rains or hand Then
form the hill around the hill sacks
khat I set in the middle with loose
potatoes and on top. This shapes up
my hill The sacks give ventilation.
I hill on high, elevated land, il l
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
5nches thick right on the top, then
make a hole with my hand through
90 the potatoes and leave them so all
winter | can go along every day
and run my hand in and see if my
potatoes are sound or not.
Then / 90 to work and build
shelter over them to keep the dirt
Cry. I built my shelter some years
ago and have used it ever since, BY
ahis plan you see | keep my place
dry year in and year out. In spring
ramove ali rotten ones so as not to
? fest the land with the rot. My
iMlelter is ten feet wide, thirty-two
Ia Vet long, four feet high behind and
4, yen in front, fronting the east,
W.arding up the back and north end,
S1he to edge front and south end
18th enough to keep out the stack,
knocking down the front for killing
and taking up. l take off about two
Behind to get dirt to hill or throw
cut in taking up paintings.
Well, let's go back to the field.
Now / use a one-horse wagon with
body on I don't put them in like
they are rocks or corn / set them
in with care not to bruise and so to
the hill and pour them out as careful
as I can. Now in this way have
handled my potatoes as few times as
il can well be done.
Dig after first frost, fair day and
let dry good
AS to marketing potatoes, well,
Am not a big farmer, and I know
there are others that can write more
interestingly how to cultivate than l
can, but II this does not go to the
waste basket | may try to say some
thing later about cultivating them
sold few potatoes last year that
7 kept up with-126 bushels They
brought me $500 got them off
shout an acre; fed the small ones to
my hogs / have sold this year los
bushels for SIS.
I handle my potatoes one bushel
90 the sack, then have no trouble any
more to measure them where my GUS
toner wants a bushel.
have them clean and not skinned
mp and good measure.
Now, reader, if you try next year
10 raise potatoes, don't try to plant
your whole crop of potatoes and
make failure like the man l saw
mentioned in the Progressive Farmer
some years ago did, and say your
mnd won't make them. ID. Powell,
Rocky Mount, N. c., in the Progress
sive Farmer.