PITTING POTATOES.

Clutha Leader, Volume II, Issue 86, 2 March 1876, Page 7

PITTING POTATOES.

At a recent meeting of the ; Eas.t Lothian Club (says the f Sydney Mail,') Mr Durie, Barney mains, in speaking of pitting... potatoes, said the j first requisite was to get. a dry place for the potatoes. But ..he did not believe in digging deep holes to store potatoes. If the surface of the ground was simply levelled, that was enough. He put his potatoes in rows of four feet wide, and as high as. he could. He put on about six inches of straw, and very little soil. By giving a considerable quantity of straw, they require much less soil, and with little soil there was less growth iri spring. He did not coyer over his pits at once to the top with so.il. He found that when potatoes were covered with a great quantity of earth up closely they were much more ready to grow in the pit in spring. Mr Smith, Stevenson Mains, remembered that long before the disease began they used to;make their potato pits fully the width of a common cart, but since the disease got so common they found it advisable to make the pits narrower, and empty the cart loads from the side instead |of the end of the pits. No rule could apply alike on every farm in potato pitting, no more than in other operations. If the Soil were clayey and the subsoil stiff,, it stood to reason, that they could not make the pits so deep as upon light sandy soil. If the land were dry they might take out about the depth of a spade of soil;, but if the soil were heavier as it mo.tly was iri East Lothian, they, should have the potatoes as near the surface, as possible: On his. farm he cleared only as , much; soil from the bottom of the pit as would, enable! them to work with shovels — about two or three inohes. He made his pits about four feet wide, and his practice was to cover the. potatoes first slightly with straw, and then put on about ! three inches of soil. He did not .believe in putting, soil to the very top, of tlie pit, because if the potatoes were green or damp they ' must of necessity have air and means of evaporation to keep well. Then he thatched the whole of. the roof oyer with straw, covering the soil, as well as the top, and this generally answered the purpose remarkably well. He could get all the potatoes in stormy arid frosty. weather as conveniently as' in "fresh. Mr Belfrage, Sainuei-on-Maine, thought that, when potatoes were being lifted, all the diseased and'frosted ones, as well as those gathered ' after the harrows, should. •be ' kept, separate from the healthy and good! tubers. He formed his pits about two inches deep and four feet wide, givinoa covering of four inches of good wheat straw and about the same of soil.' He did not cover the. top of the. p't all a? once, but finished that pit some: time afterwards, towards the end of November, but a little depended on the weather.