258 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



with the small tooth cultivator is begun as soon as the plants get hold of the 

 soil, and is kept up shallowly till the vines cover the ground. The last work- 

 ing is after the vines get quite long. A hand goes ahead and throws the vines 

 over into the adjoining space and the cotton sweep is used to throw a furrow 

 to the row. Each alternate row is thus laid by and then the vines in the 

 other rows are thrown over and the remaining rows earthed up. No hand 

 work is done except to remove any grass or weeds that may appear in the 

 rows. No effort is made to throw back the vines from the last working, as 

 they can wander wherever they list. Some growers go through the field later 

 in the season and pull the vines loose where they have rooted to the ground, 

 but we do .no thing of the sort as the labor in doing it is wasted. 



PLANTING THE LATE CROP IN THE SOUTH. 



The sweet potatoes from the spring planting of sprouts make the earliest 

 potatoes, but it has been found that those grown later in the season are more 

 easily kept in winter than the spring planted ones. Hence all large growers 

 produce the winter keeping crop from cuttings set in summer from the vines 

 of the early crop. This late crop is grown for two purposes. First, for the 

 production of a crop for table use in winter, and, secondly, a crop of small 

 potatoes for bedding in the spring. For the table crop a piece of land is 

 selected from which some early crop which was fairly well fertilized, has 

 been taken off. Furrows are run three feet apart, and cuttings a foot long 

 of the tips of vines are laid along the furrow slice 15 inches apart, and an- 

 other furrow is thrown on them so as to cover all bat the tip of the cutting. 

 Men follow and tramp the earth to the cuttings and the work is done. If the 

 ground is rather moist and the weather favorable nearly every cutting will 

 grow and they are worked just as the first crop. This planting is done early 

 in July. For the seed crop cuttings about a yard long are made in August 

 Ridges are made as for spring planting, the planter coils the long cutting 

 around one hand, and inserts the whole coil in the ground so as to leave only 

 the tip exposed. A cluster of small potatoes will form at every covered joint, 

 and these "slips," as they are called, make far better and more productive 

 seed for the spring bedding than the cullings from the main crop. 



HARVESTING SWEET POTATOES. 



The crop always grows till frost cuts the vines. When the first light 

 frost has blackened the leaves, lose no time in taking off the whole of the 

 vines from the hills, even if you do not dig them at once, for the decaying 



