LOOM.
When hauled from the field or taken from the sorting benches the potatoes are dumped into the bins. All handling should be done as carefully as possible. The two prime requisites of success in getting the crop into the house are to have the potatoes well dried, clean and free from dirt and to handle them without bruising. It is a good plan to place a bed of pine leaves six inches deep on the bottom of the bins and around the sides, and by proper management with a plank, a carpenter's saw-horse and a sack or two filled with straw, the potatoes can be piled in the bins to a height of eight or nine feet with very little bruising.
The storage house should be thoroughly heated and dried out for two or three days before the first potatoes are put in it. The weather is usually warm at that time, so that the temperature may easily be run up to 80° or 90°, or even 100°. While the potatoes are being put into the house, it should be heated to about 90'; any temperature from 80 to 100° will do. Considerable ventilation should be allowed. Under no conditions should the house be heated above 90° for long periods without rather free ventilation. With temperatures above 80° the newly dug potatoes undergo a sweating process and give off much moisture, which often condenses on their own surfaces. The air of the room becomes extremely damp, and if not removed the house soon reeks with moisture. The purpose is to warm the house by passing currents of warm air over the potatoes and out through the ventilators. A tem perature of about 90° should be maintained day and night while the potatoes are being put into the house, and for ten days to two or three weeks after the last potatoes are in. When the house is thor oughly dried the air feels dusty and dry and the potatoes feel soft and velvety, when they are said to be kiln-dried. Whatever bruises may have been given them and the broken ends where they were snapped from the vines are thoroughly dried and healed over, and they are then in a condition to keep through the winter. As a result of this dry ing they have shriveled slightly and undergone some physiological change not fully understood. The young or immatured roots sometimes shrivel seriously, but well-matured potatoes remain plump. Frequently there is considerable sprouting in the bins, which may be regarded as a sign of too much moisture or too-long delayed movement of the moisture out of the bins. But the sprouting is not a bad sign, since sprouting potatoes do not decay.
When the house is found to be thoroughly dry, the temperature may be reduced. About this time of the year cool weather naturally comes on and this, in connection with lighter firing, should allow the house gradually to cool down. The drop should be made slowly ; the first week it may be down to 75°, the next week to 70°, until finally a stationary temperature between 55° and 60° is reached. This is maintained throughout the winter. Temperatures above 60° cause slightly more shriveling than may be necessary and are conducive to more sprouting than is desirable. Temperatures below 55° may not prove injurious, especially if they are only of short duration, but they are not advisable. Some growers keep their houses for weeks at a tempera ture of only ; but the margin between freezing and chilling temperatures is dangerously small when a house is kept so cool. No matter how mild the winter day, it is necessary to keep some fire in the house in order to keep the movement of mois ture toward the outside. If the house becomes miler than the outside air the moisture condenses iu the house. On the other hand, some growers prefer to keep their sweet-potatoes at 70° or 75°, or about the temperature of the ordinary living room. It may be said in a general way that the conditions of the ordinary living-room are ideal for sweet-potato storage except that the temperature is 10° to 15° too warm.
Light is supposed to be objectionable, but seems not to be seriously so. As a rule, the windows of the storage house should be covered with shutters to keep out the light. After the potatoes are thoroughly dried out, and while the house is being gradually cooled, the amount of ventilation should be reduced correspondingly, and finally, when the temperature is settled for the winter, the venti lators may be closed or nearly so. If under these conditions on a cool night there is pronounced sweating on the windows, it is better to continue slight ventilation for a few days longer, especially when it is sunny and dry outside. When a rainy or damp spell occurs during the process of drying, it is better not to let in much of the outside damp air, and this will necessitate reduc tion in the firing. On the other hand, on adry day a very hot fire can be built and plenty of venti lation given. The process of curing under these conditions proceeds rapidly.