REPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN. 



381 



moderate production, the last crop yielding only 73 bushels per acre 

 and a product of about 163,000,000 bushels. The yield was good in 

 the Eastern States, medium in New York, and still less in Michigan 

 and other Western States. The previous record is as follows: 



Sweet-potatoes {Batatas edulis) are grown in the cotton States, 

 and in a very limited way in others up to about the 40th degree of 

 latitude. The product is increasing in the South with advance- 

 ment of population. The area devoted to this crop in 1886 was largely 

 increased in those States where it is a material part of the agricult- 

 ural production, and condition on July 1 was high. The wet weather 

 in the South during that month was not conducive to good growth, 

 and there was a slight falling in the average of the larger States. 

 This decline was continuing and more marked during August, and 

 the figures of condition of September 1 gave evidence of local inju- 

 ries from supersaturation in some sections and drought in others. 

 The October condition in the principal States was: North Carolina, 

 93; Georgia, 90; Alabama, 92; Mississippi, 92; Tennessee, 95, and 

 South Carolina, 94. 



The crop may therefore be considered an average one, and may 

 have reached 40,000,000 bushels. It slightly exceeded 33,000,000 

 bushels in 1879. North Carolina and Georgia are States of largest 

 production, producing each about 5,000,000 bushels.. 



HAY. 



The crop of 1886 was fully as large as that of 1885, but less than 

 the two large crops of 1883 and 1884— about 45,000,000 tons— yielding 

 about an average crop, or nearly one and one-fifth tons per acre. 

 The crop is an important one, and it is gratifying to state that 

 increasing attention is paid to it in the South, in connection with 

 improved stock-growing and dairying. The use of Japan clover 

 {Lespedeza striata) and several Southern grasses, and also of lucerne 



