The Newark journal. (Newark, Ark.) 1901-1959, 1909-06-18
GROWING SWEET POTATOES
How Some independence County
Farmers are Taking rlorey

1t is said that one half the PEG
Pile don't know how the other half
is getting along; and I've some
times thought the other half didn t
care, especially when some fellow
beat me ten or twenty dollars in a
horse trade.
Often we do not know how our
neighb0rs are living, or how they
are making a living, and in all
probability we would never know
unless we visited them and saw
their mode and manner of work,
and their management about the
farm, garden, orchard and truck
patches.
| had business some months ago
that called me to Relief township
on the south side of the river, and
while there | learned something
about how sweet potatoes are rails
ed and handled in large quantities,
and thinking it might interest
some of the readers of The Jour
nal, | will give them an idea of
how some of our neigh bors make
living in that part of the county.
The people on this mountain
land are making a living-and they
are living, too. Their land will
not grow a bale of cotton nor fifty
bushels of corn to the acre, but
will produce more and better fruit
or potatoes than our rich river
bottom lands.
In preparing the land for po-
tato crop, it is first broken during
the winter or early spring and is
narrowed, rolled and re-broke sew
eral times before time for setting
the slips. The slipping is done by
furnaces or kilns. A trench or
ditch is cut in the ground two feet
deep, three or four feet wide and
twenty to thirty feet long. On
top of the ground by the sides of
this ditch, beds are walled up
about a foot high, on which are
placed large flat rocks, and on
these rocks good thick layer of
earth is placed, in which the pota-
toes are bedded. One end of the
furnace, or ditch, is left open,
while at the other end a chimney
is built some six or eight feet high.
After the potatoes are bedded, a
fire is kept burning in the furnace
for several days, or until the po-
tatoes begin to slip well. In about
ten days after the potatoes are
bedded the slips are large enough
to transplant. The ground is then
furrowed in rows about three feet
apart, and the transplanting be-
gins. This is done by dropping
the plants along in the furrow Is
to Is inches apart and all leaning
to one side. Then a furrow is
thrown on them from the opposite
side with a small shovel pillow.
The cultivation is similar to cot
ton, leaving a good-sized ridge
when laid by. Growing potatoes
is easy, as great many people
know, but the great trouble is in
keeping them during the winter.
But the keeping of potatoes, like
many other things, is easy, if we
are prepared and know how
The growers here have houses
built purposely for storing pota-
toes during the winter. These
houses are built with double walls
with twelve to sixteen inches of
space between the walls, and this
space is packed tightly with saw
dust. The buildings are 10 to II
feet wide by 20 to 80 feet long and
about eight feet high, with en-
trance facing the south. Near the
door is partition wall, forming a
small room, in which a stove is
kept.
If the weather is rainy and wet
just before digging time, the po-
tatoes are sorted, and the larger
ones housed first and taken through
a heating process before being