168 The Sweet Potato 



market in the winter, when prices are good. As a result 

 most of the potatoes in the South are consumed locally 

 and placed on the market at digging time, when prices 

 are low. Consequently, few sweet potatoes go on the 

 northern markets in the winter, and even in the South 

 where they are grown they can not he obtained with any 

 degree of certainty at that season of the year. It is 

 believed that if storage methods and principles were 

 better understood, more potatoes would be available for 

 winter use and disposed of at good prices. 



" The success of the industry, however, does not de- 

 pend on successful storage methods alone. It is a well- 

 known fact that there are several field diseases of the 

 sweet potato, the best known of which are black-rot, 

 stem-rot and foot-rot. The storage of black-rot potatoes 

 must necessarily result in heavy loss, since the disease 

 spreads rapidly throughout the bins. Stem-rot on the 

 other hand, does not produce any marked decay in stor- 

 age, but it may open the way for storage-rot organisms 

 to enter the potato. It therefore becomes imperative 

 that the elimination of the field diseases must be coupled 

 with a well-regulated system of storage. 



" Great care should be exercised in handling sweet 

 potatoes not to bruise them any more than necessary. 

 The bruises made by rough handling open the way for 

 storage-rot organisms to enter. A farmer would never 

 think of handling apples, oranges, or any of the fruits 

 in the way that sweet potatoes are handled, and yet a 

 barrel of good sweet potatoes will bring as much on the 

 market, and often more than a barrel of good apples, 

 and sweet potatoes bruise even more readily than apples. 

 It is likely that if sweet potatoes were handled with the 

 same care and intelligence as apples, little difficulty 



