Utilization of the Sweet Potato 31 



for hog-grazing in October. An acre of sweet potatoes 

 should feed eight or ten hogs weighing 200 pounds for 

 a period of two months, provided supplemental feeds are 

 used to balance the ration. Hogs will often root up 

 more than they will eat immediately but little or no 

 loss results. It has been found that some of the heaviest 

 yielding varieties, such as the Yellow Strasburg, Red 

 Bermuda, Southern Queen and White Belmont, may be 

 left out in the field with but slight injury, for feeding 

 purposes. Care should be taken in feeding frost-bitten 

 potatoes to horses, mules and cattle as they are very- 

 sweet at this time and stock eat them ravenously. 

 They should never be fed to any stock other than hogs 

 after they have become sour. Hogs eat them, however, 

 with no apparent bad results. For fall and early win- 

 ter grazing, the sweet potato is preeminently the best 

 crop for hogs that can be grown in the South. The cut- 

 over pine lands of that region will doubtless owe their 

 development as a hog-raising country largely to the fact 

 that these soils are ideally suited to the growth of sweet 

 potatoes, which furnish excellent grazing during the 

 period when other grazing crops are getting a start be- 

 fore severely cold weather ; and to the perfectly balanced 

 ration secured when supplemented with other easily 

 grown grazing crops, such as peanuts, soybeans, and 

 cowpea pastures. Such a combination will certainly 

 result in the production of economical pork. 



Beattie ^ has suggested the production of excellent 

 stock feed by growing some of the heavy yielding vari- 

 ties of sweets, drying and pulverizing them and adding 

 enough concentrates to form, a balanced ration. As 



1 Farmers' Bull. 324, U. S. Dept. Agr. 



