Digging And Care Of Potatoes

% pit fcipn rps We make the following extract on this subject froiu the Pótalo Booi, as both timoly and practical : From planting to cooking, and in all processes between and inclusive, potatoes are unquostionably tho most abmed thintr vor culvivated for human use : and in tho long catalogue of orrors poculiar to this oxcollent esculent, one of Ihe most outrageous is negleoting to harvent them as soon as they aro ripo. No othor erop is ïnaltrcated in this way. When any othercrop is fully rautured, tho farmer socures it at once lest it wastes and decays. liut potatoes being out of sight are out of mimi for a convonient season. When the farmer can find nothing elso to do ho digs thom, nnd then perhaps complains of theui for beingof bad charaotor. Aoy other erop would bo ia bad or worse if treated in a similar ïnanner. Potatoos aro not uufrequently loft in the ground nevoral weeks after being ripe, as though they wero doad stones andundamageable instead of living, perishable organisms, subjoot to all tho conditions, transformations and disoases thatportain to all vital truoturos. Itisseldom that potatoes are not more or lesa dumagod by negleot to harvestat the proper time, or by improper management in harvesting, howevor ■well thoy may havo beon raised and miitured. Whon the tops of potato plants wither, the tubers are ripe, and, like other orops, will be injured if not at once gathered and iaken caro of. If allowed to be once soakod in the ground, by a severo or prolonged rain after riponing, they loso irreparably some degreo ot their sweet flavor and some portion of thoir nutriënt properties ; nor are they so sound and vital for seed potatoes ; and every rain ftugments the oamage, rendering them both less piilutablo and loss wholesome. What farmor oan be iguuríint of tho faot that the potatoes ho digs in November and December are less dry and swaot than thoso ho ato from the same field in September and üctober previously V Potates should not be oxposed to the air, sun or wind to dry them, as is customary, after being dug. If moist or dirty when taken' from tho grouïid, cloaning and dryñg does not protect thom, but tho re verge. Every potato that bccomes unoovered bofore it beoomes ripe, or which protmdes above its earthly covering,soon beoomes blighted in its exposed part - a fact that provos thut it is defeuseless against aerial elements, and its need when dug of immediato proteotion."