422 GARDEN FARMING 



flour, or desiccated and handled the same as dried fruits. It is 

 also extensively canned. 



As a stock food the sweet potato is very valuable. The vines 

 have some food value for pigs and cattle, and the roots are a de- 

 sirable food for swine, sheep, and cows. When planted for hogs, 

 sweet potatoes are usually left in the ground to be harvested by the 

 animals at will. When intended as food for cows or sheep, the roots, 

 to be safe for consumption, must be harvested and passed through 

 a root cutter. This feature of sweet-potato cultivation, because of 

 the limited stock industry in the regions in which these potatoes 

 thrive best, has not, up to the present time, become a factor of any 

 considerable importance. Within the next decade, however, the 

 sweet potato is destined to become of great importance as a food 

 for stockers or for fattening animals, and will, to a considerable 

 extent, take the place of the more expensive grains now used. The 

 roots can be cheaply dried in kilns similar to those used for curing 

 hops, and when so cured a product is obtained which, according 

 to chemical analysis, has about the same composition as corn meal. 

 An average of 750 pounds of dried material can be made from 

 I ton of fresh potatoes. The roots are prepared for drying by 

 being passed through a root cutter, which cuts them into thin 

 slices or chips. 



Kind of soil. The sweet potato is a gross feeder and revels in 

 a rich soil. It demands perfect drainage and a soil that warms up 

 to a high degree and dries out rapidly after heavy rains. For this 

 reason a sandy soil or a sandy loam is best suited to the crop. 

 While the sweet potato will thrive upon heavy soils, the yield is 

 much less and the character of the roots is different. Heavy, reten- 

 tive soils have a tendency to produce roots which are abnormally 

 long and watery as compared with the same varieties grown upon 

 light, sandy soils. Varieties differ widely in relative dryness of 

 their flesh, so that the differences which may be noted in the 

 product found in the open market may be either varietal or due 

 to the character of soil on which they have been grown. 



Preparation of the soil. The preparation of the soil for sweet 

 potatoes should be as follows : the first choice of land for planting is 

 a crimson clover sod, and the second, stubble land. Plowing should 

 be done early in the latitude of New Jersey during the early 



