School: Askamore (roll number 15675)

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1. The Potato Crop

   

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   Potatoes are grown each year on our farm. As we are caretakers of the farm on which we live we are allowed to sow about half an acre of potatoes each year.
   Sometimes the ground is top-dressed with farm-yard manure before it is ploughed. In this locality the potatoes are sown in drills. The drills are made by means of a plough drawn by two horses. The spades are bought in a shop. Before the potatoes are sown , they are cut in parts and each must have an eye. These parts are called the seeds. Then the manure is spread between the drills and the potatoes are sown. The drills are closed with plough.
   Some people help one another by lending a horse or a labouring man to sow the potatoes.
   During the Summer season it is necessary to weed the potatoes and to remould them.About the end of Summer a disease comes on the crop called the blight . To guard against this disease it is necessary to spray. The spray is a mixture of sulphate of copper and sulphate of soda. The spraying machine is drawn by one horse and sprays two drills each time.
   In this locality the potatoes are raised by a machine called a potato digger. The local people help one another to pick the potatoes. They are put in pits lined with straw and covered with soil. After a few months they are drawn in and the good ones are put in a barn, and some of them are kept for seed the following year.The bad ones are boiled for pigs and poultry. Some soil is mixed with the good potatoes to keep them

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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

   Rosaleen Moore

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Askamore, Co. Wexford