The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-08-19
bE. YOAKUM ADDRESSES
THE WESTERN FARMERS
HOW TO KEEP
SWEET POTATOES
A Subject Which Has Given the Farm.
er More or Less Trouble Is Ex-
planned by Prof. Massey, in
Southern Farm Gazette.

How few farmers have sweet pota-
toes every day in the year. and yet We
have them here, for now, August 5th.
the new potatoes are coming in and
the old ones are still on the market
and have been since last summer.
OF course, l am in the greatest
sweet potato country in the United
States, the Maryland-Virginia penin-
sula, and our growers have learned
how to keep sweet potatoes easily in
their curing houses, and in the fur
ther South the potato house is as
much needed as here.
You can keep them till the first of
June in the banks outside if protected
from rain by a board shelter over the
hills, but after that it is hard to pre-.
!yenttheir sprouting under ordinary
conditions. But if you grow any
amount of sweet potatoes land every
Southern farmer should grow enough
to have a constant supply for the ta--
bic all the year through and every
day in the year,, you should make a
potato house ten feet wide and as long
as needed. We have some here that
hold 5000 bushels. Sink the house
two feet in the ground in a location
where no water can get in. But Il
water is certain to rise in an excav9-
ton in winter, then build entirely
above ground - posts for the walls
and sheath .- de and outside, and
cover the outside with tar paper and
then weatherbOard it. This will give
"a dead air space to keep out cold
Make the side walls six feet high and
put on a double-pitched roof with
yentiator in the center that can be
opened and closed. Flour over from
the caves to make a sort of sock-loft
above, that will be useful for onions
and will keep cold out from below. I'll
will be best to put Slated shelves on
each side of a contral walk, so that
the potatoes will not be in too large
a heap. Or you can gather and put
them in the ventilated truck barrels
and pile these in the house.
Dig these when the soil is dry, and |
do not let them be thrown into heaps
in the field but merely left along the
rows to sun well. When all are in.
start a fire either by means of a box
stove and pipe running the length Of
the house, or by a furnace and flue
like tobacco barn if on a large scale
In fact. an empty tobacco barn, well |
can be made to keep pota
toes very well. but Will need more
winter firing than q well built potato
house. Run the temperature in the
house up to 90 deeroes with the VENT .
9tor open, and keep this up daily ;
iu the potatoes have sweated and
Tried off. After that there is little ,
in keeping them, if sound :
when stored Watch the house in cold ,
Weather and try to keep it as near as Z
iossible between 40 and 45 degrees, ,
10 higher nor lower. You will sell i
Iom need fine heat to do this in a well {
,uilt house with dead wall and loft, r
With the sides banked partly outside. n
you can then be ready to take advan- !
AXE Of the market and get the best a
rice. If wanted to keep in warm
reather, open up the house and ven L
ilator at night, and close up before a
unrise to keep the heat out. In this t
way it is easy to have potatoes till
he new crop comes in.