School: Tagoat (roll number 5990)
- Location:
- Tagoat, Co. Wexford
- Teacher: Pádraig Coilféir
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0879, Page 083
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- XML “Potato Lifting”
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- The potatoes were sown in Spring. They grow through the Spring and the Summer and they have fully grown in October. They are then picked, because the Winter frosts would destroy them.When the farmer has only a small garden of potatoes he digs them with a spade. If he has a big field of potatoes he ploughs them. He ploughs every second drill, but all the potatoes do not appear over the surface of the ground. Some of them get covered with the clay, and the pickers must shove the clay away with their hands. This work is very hard on the hands. the farmer who has a very large piece of land under potatoes uses a machine called a potato digger. This machine digs all the potatoes above the ground, and no labour is required to pick them. Children pick them also. They are picked in special potato baskets, which are laid on the drill, that is not ploughed.When the potatoes are picked they are put in carts and drawn home to be stored in the potato house for the Winter. The farmer puts them in a pit in the field if he has not room in the house for them. The table potatoes are sorted from the seed, which are(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Peggy Lynch
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Maytown, Co. Wexford
