School: Inis Céin

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1. The Potato-Crop

   

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   The land in neighbourhood of Enniskean is rich and is very suitable for the growth of potatoes and the good crops that are grown every year attest to its fertility. There is one fault, and that is the acreage under the potato-crop each year is too little, grazing being adopted on a larger scale. The farmers of this locality are the same as all the farmers of Ireland at the present day, they like to avoid labour themselves and leave the horses and machinery to do it. For this reason the potatoes are sown in drills except on rare occasions they might be sown in ridges; a "bawn" field is used for the ridges. Manure is spread on the field and it is left there for a day or two, the field is then ploughed with a board plough and so the ridges are made, there are five or six sods in each ridge and a dyke between, one of the sods at the side is known as the "caolfhód"; there is more earth in this sod than in any other sod in the ridge. The ridges are then hacked with "grafáns", the earth of the caolfhód is spread across the top; work known as "the sticking of the scoláns" then begins. Men carry the "scoláns" in pouches, they drive the spades through the sods by leaning on the "bacáns" with their legs, they then push the handle forward and throw the scoláns into the holes behind the spades. When the potatoes are sown the holes are closed with implements known as [?]
   (bailcíns in margin)
   For drills a stubble field is ploughed and harrowed, then drills are opened there, two drills take up the same space as one ridge. Manure is spread in the trenches and the scoláns are put under the manure, sprouters are sometimes used for drills, then with a board plough the drills are split and the trenches are closed. As the earth in the drills if very soft

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. activities
      1. economic activities
         1. agriculture (~2,659)
            1. potatoes (~2,701)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Séamus Ó Lordáin

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Enniskean, Co. Cork