THE WAUPACA POST

Date not noted

 

Keeping Potatoes

           

            An old farmer says:  All farmers I have known have granaries or corncribs with lath floor and sides, just the thing to put fresh dug potatoes into.  All kinds of fruits, grain and vegetables give off a certain amount of moisture after gathering, and if they are permitted to lie in heaps on the floor in the cellar or anywhere out of a circulation of air, will keep wet, which tends to produce decay.  My practice is to dig potatoes when the ground   is dry; pick them up as dug; keep them covered by a blanket from the sun while in wagon, and place them on the lath in my corn bin, about eighteen inches thick, and leave them there till fear of freezing, when they are placed in bins in the cellar.  The air coming up from beneath keeps them perfectly dry.  One fall it was late when I dug them, and I thought it was so near the time to put them in the cellar I would take them there directly.  In a few days I found they were decaying; I took them out and put them in the corncrib, and they dried off and did not rot afterward.