422 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



attainable luxury, it offers tempting inducements to persevering 

 attention to the cultivation of such kinds and varieties as are 

 best adapted to our soil, climate and situation. Fruit being a 

 "wholesome, palatable and nutritious article of food, needed for 

 the preservation of health, and preventive of disease, its culture 

 should be considered a subject of much importance, and worthy 

 of all the investigation, labor and patience, required. 



J. B. King, Chairman. 



VEGETABLES. 



Sweet Potatoes, — The following statement, concerning the 

 sweet potato, was furnished by Caleb Bates, of Kingston : — 



I ploughed an acre and a half of poor sandy soil, threw it into 

 ridges, a part of which had a little manure, the scrapings of my 

 yards, and transplanted the slips, forced in hot-beds, and obtained 

 three hundred and fifty bushels, — sweeter, as hundreds will tes- 

 tify, than those brought from the south. The crop would have 

 been doubled with proper fertilizers and cultivation. The sea- 

 son was as favorable as will average. The sweet potato is as 

 sure a crop as that of Indian corn. 



[The sweet potato is said to be a native of both the Indies 

 and China. It was introduced into Spainfromthe West Indies, 

 and soon after into England, and sold as a delicacy, and is the 

 potato of the old English botanists, the common potato then 

 being unknown. The stem is round, rough, prostrate, creep- 

 ing, sending out purple flowers, and producing scattered, oblong 

 tubers, of a pale green color, and, in a genial soil, to the num- 

 ber of forty or fifty, bearing a close resemblance to those seen in 

 the market from the Carolinas. It is a tropical plant, and cul- 

 tivated in a manner similar to the common potato, but requiring 

 more room for its trailing stems, which grow to the length, some- 

 times, of eight or ten feet. Attempts were made to cultivate it 



