14 SWEET POTATO CULTURE. 



In Nansemoiid, Norfolk, and other maritime counties, 

 the average is believed to be still larger. In Georgia 

 three hundred bushels per acre have been raised. Statis- 

 tics in regard to the Sweet Potato are exceedingly meagre, 

 it not having, heretofore, been a main crop, except in 

 limited districts. This is attributable mostly to ignor- 

 ance and carelessness in the methods of preservation from 

 decay, rendering profits uncertain, except where naviga- 

 tion and railroad facilities are at hand. 



When we shall have devised better means for curing 

 the potatoes for foreign shipment, the increase of produc- 

 tion will doubtless be augmented beyond calculation. 

 This being secured, Covent Garden, London, and other 

 great marts of trade, would require vast quantities of 

 this luscious product of the sandy lands of our Southern 

 country ; and, when this is successfully accomplished, the 

 Sweet Potato crop might become as valuable as one-half 

 the cotton crop. 



CHAPTER III. 

 USES OF THE SWEET POTATO. 



In the year 18G8, 0. II. Marshall, of Vicksburg, Miss., 

 forwarded to the Department of Agriculture specimens 

 of Sweet Potatoes dried (varieties not named), and also 

 some converted into meal. In June, 18G9, additional 

 samples were forwarded, with the request to have them 

 examined in the laboratory. The specimens, both sliced 

 and flour, were white, the root slices being covered with 

 thin white powder (starch grains) and on cracking the 

 slice across, the center had, in few instances, altered its 



