18 The Sweet Potato 



the limiting factor of production as the line indicative 

 of profitable growth is moved northward. 



The sweet potato finds its most desirable soil en- 

 vironment when planted on light friable loam or sandy 

 soil with a yellow clay subsoil. A well-drained soil 

 that is warm and loose with a good proportion of sand 

 in the top soil and a subsoil fairly retentive of moisture 

 provides ideal conditions. A moderately fertile sandy 

 loam lacking an excess of undecayed organic matter is 

 preferable, although a fairly good yield can often be 

 obtained on soils too poor for the production of most 

 farm crops. Large yields of the most desirable market 

 type of potatoes are sometimes produced on some of the 

 driest and most sandy soils when the growing condi- 

 tions are favorable, but care in the selection of suitable 

 areas usually pays in greatly increased returns. The 

 depleted cotton and tobacco lands of the South can be 

 made to give excellent returns in sweet potatoes when 

 intelligent care is exercised to provide a supply of 

 humus in the soil by a leguminous crop in the rotation. 

 The loams and mixed sandy soils of northern Louisi- 

 ana, the friable chocolate loams of northeast Texas, the 

 cut-over long-leaf yellow pine lands of Mississippi, 

 Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, northern and eastern 

 South Carolina, the lower sand hills and coastal regions 

 of North Carolina, eastern Virginia, lower New Jersey 

 and Delaware, the sandy localities of the Kaw and 

 Arkansas valleys in Arkansas and eastern and southern 

 Tennessee, all afford soil types well suited to the com- 

 mercial production of this important food crop. Other 

 sections of these same states, as the Piedmont regions 

 of northern Georgia and North Carolina, supply soil 

 conditions possible of profitable development but re- 



