116 GARDENING FOR Y.OUNG AND OLD. 



SWEET POTATOES. 



Sweet Potatoes are essentially a southern crop, and 

 their cultivation in the Southern States is an easy and 

 simple matter. At the North, good crops can be grown, 

 but it is necessary to raise the plants in a greenhouse or 

 hot-bed. Market gardeners, who grow the plants for 

 sale, as they do tomato plants, find the business quite 

 profitable, as there is a yearly increasing demand for the 

 plants, which are often sent long distances by express. 

 The plants are easily grown in the hot-bed, the chief dif- 

 ficulty being to preserve the potatoes intended for seed 

 through the winter. They cannot be kept in a cool, 

 damp cellar, like common potatoes. They should be 

 kept in a dry room, where the thermometer never gets 

 below fo^ty degrees or above sixty. In this section we 

 place the potatoes in the hot-bed, from the middle to 

 the end of April the cooler the bed the earlier we plant. 

 Cut the roots lengthwise and place the cut side on the 

 loose soil or sand in the hot-bed, and cover with sand or 

 mould, two inches thick. As the shoots grow, more 

 sand may be added, until it reaches the height of four or 

 five inches above the potatoes. The shoots or young 

 plants can be removed and set out in another hot-bed, as 

 the potatoes will continue to throw up new shoots. In 

 this way a large number of plants can be obtained from 

 each. Of course, it is necessary to attend to ventilating 

 and watering the hot-bed. The hotter the bed, and the 

 brighter the sun, the more water will be needed. In no 

 case must the bed be allowed to get dry. It is also neces- 

 sary to guard against chilling the plants by saturating the 

 bed with cold water. Sweet potato plants are set out in 

 the open ground from the first of June to the first of 

 July. A warm, sandy soil is best. It is not necessary to 

 have the land excessively rich, or the quality of the po- 



