350 Journal op the Department op Agriculture. 



North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, and there is a corresponding 

 traffic in the tuber on Chesapeake Bay and the Tennessee Eiver. 

 Some years ago one steamboat alone was carrying 7000 barrels of 

 sweet potatoes per week between the lower landings on the eastern 

 shores of Virginia and Baltimore at a freight of 1400 dollars per 

 week right throngli the autumn and winter. 



Further inland, in Ohio, it is customary to take up the tubers 

 before winter sets in, the experience there, as in some other localities, 

 being that heavy frost injures the potatoes if they are left under- 

 ground. If that happens they may nevertheless seem quite sound to 

 all outward appearances, but when stored they rot badly. There are 

 many other regions also where sweet potatoes arrive at maturity 

 during or just prior to seasons of frost, and where for this reason the 

 tubers cannot be allowed to remain underground. Plans have there- 

 fore been devised to preserve them, after digging out, for future use, 

 particularly in the case of those varieties which do not keep well 

 after harvesting. The care with which such varieties and, in fact, 

 sweet potatoes in general have to be handled in winter has been 

 compared with the care necessary in handling eggs, on account of 

 the liability of the tubers to become bruised and to rot in consequence. 

 That this is not the language of exaggeration may be gathered from 

 the advice on the haulage of sweet potatoes given by the United States 

 Department of Agriculture; it is recommended that the tubers be 

 gathered in the field in -padded baskets or boxes, and, if they have to 

 be conveyed veiy far hy vehicle, only wagons with holster springs 

 should be used. It follows that even the digging up has to be done 

 with care and that machines employed for digging up Irish potatoes 

 cannot be used, as they would bruise the sweet potato tubers and 

 injure them in other ways. After being scratched out by hand thej' 

 should be left loose on the land to dry ; it is considered bad practice 

 in the United States to throw the recently unearthed tubers from 

 several rows in heaps, as they become bruised and more liable to 

 decay. It is also advised that they should in any case be brought 

 indoors before night, and carefuly stored in bins. 



Storage. 



To ensure satisfactory keeping of the tubers, four points have 

 to be attended to: (1) The tubers must be thoroughly ripe, (2) they 

 must not be bruised or the skin damaged, (3) they must be kept dry 

 and well ventilated, and (4) not be subject to considerable tempe- 

 rature changes during storage. 



For storing sweet potatoes when they have to be kept for a 

 period of eight months or over the winter, a preliminary sweating 

 process has been strongly recommended — two weeks' storage in a 

 well-ventilated cellar, for instance, at a dry temperature between 80° 

 and 90° F., so that they may sweat thoroughly. The temperature is 

 then allowed to fall to about 65° F. and so maintained. 



Probably the sweet potato would be more frequently cultivated 

 from the tubers, but for the difficulty of storing the latter. 

 Experience acquired in Florida showed that if they are not dug up 

 until mature and are not bruised in handling, a great deal of this 

 difficulty disappears. An American agricultural magazine advised as 

 follows: " When digging they should be shaken from their stems and 

 laid upon the top of the ground, not in piles, for in so doing they 



