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School: An Cillín (roll number 16603)

Location:
Killin, Co. Donegal
Teacher:
Séamus Mac Eachlainn
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1036, Page 229

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1036, Page 229

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  3. XML “The Potatoes”

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  1. The Potatoes

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    We set a crop of potatoes on the farm every year, as potatoes are one of the principal foods for the people of this country. My father generally prepares the ground for the potatoes with a help from my brother at times. Farmyard manure is generally put on the ground before the potatoes are set. The are as a rule set in ridges with a spade as the land is rather wet for a plough. The people of this district don't remember nor ever have heard of wooden ploughs being used in this place.
    It is necessary for one eye at least to be in every seed. It is usually women who cut the seed. When the seed are being kibbed, the farmer makes a hole in the ridge with a spade or a trowel, and then a seed is set in this hole by the boy or girl carrying the seed. Then the hole is closed again with the spade.
    The neighbours very seldom help each other in this district now, but long ago they used always help one another.
    While the potatoes are growing the farmer has to give them great attention. He first has to dig the furrows and shovel the potatoes, he then has to weed the ridges, before he shovels them he has to put sulphur on them, he then has to spray them three times so as to prevent blight. They then have to be dug when the tops are gray and withered on the ridges and then they have to be stored in pits. To make a pit the farmer first digs a hole between two ridges, puts the potatoes into it, and then covers them first with rushes and then with soil on top of the rushes. The potatoes are left in these pits until they are being cut for seed.
    The following are the names of the potatoes which grow
    (continues on next page)
    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
    Annie Teresa Boyle
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Drumlaghtafin, Co. Donegal
    Informant
    Anne Meehan
    Gender
    Female
    Age
    76
    Address
    Drumlaghtafin, Co. Donegal