34 THE SWEET POTATO. 



tubers, cut into small pieces and roasted, can be 

 bought on the streets, like roasted chestnuts here. 

 Australia and New Zealand also cultivate the tuber 

 extensively. 



But, of course, what concerns us most is what the 

 sweet potato is at present and what it ought to be, 

 in the United States. 



In no other country is the sweet potato cultivated 

 successfully so far north as with us. That is princi- 

 pally due to our tropical summers. The plant 

 requires a hot, dry season to mature the tubers, and 

 such we can offer as far north as central New Jersey 

 and Illinois. In the Gulf States it continues to crop 

 throughout the summer and fall, if occasional rains 

 supply enough moisture. This means that whereas 

 in New Jersey the sweet potato under favorable con- 

 ditions has five months and a half in which to mature 

 the tubers, in the Gulf States it has seven and a half. 

 As new tubers are started on the roots at the joints 

 as well as on the main stem throughout the season, 

 it is evident that those which have not time to mature 

 in a short season and are so small as to be unsalable 

 (the ''culls," as they are called) would have matured 

 in a longer season. So it happens that in a favor- 

 able season the crop in the Gulf States may be easily 

 twice as large as in the Northern State, and, as the 

 quantity of immature tubers at harvest time even in 

 the South shows, a still longer season would have 

 matured still more. 



Now there can be no question that sweet potato 

 culture is profitable in the North. 



In New Jersey, where sweet potato farming is 

 practiced on as thorough a plan as am^where, a crop 

 of 150 to 200 bushels per acre, at an average price 

 of $0.60 a bushel, and an outlay of $60.00 an acre, 

 well repays cultivation. As to the crops which can 



