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author kept them for four months growing and prospering without a single - 
drop of rain on them. The next best is the Zeosella, which appears to the taste 
sweeter than the former, but is less mealy. The objections to it are that the 
largest tubers grow not seldom a few feet from the main stem, to which they 
are united by a very thin root indeed, whilst a number of small tubers grow 
here and there where the adventitious roots have struck into the ground, which 
causes a vreat many tubers to be injured by implements when being dug out. 
The writer recently introduced in the West a few new varieties, like the 
General Grant, the Spanish Giant, the vineless Batata Ypomea, &c.; but his 
experience of thein is too limited as yet to permit him to express any opinion 
on their respective merits. 
There is no plant which can be put to such a variety of uses as the sweet 
potato. The tender shoots form a very palatable vegetable when treated 
exactly like asparagus. ‘The young leaves, first boiled, then chopped down and 
fried in butter, and served with boiled egys cut into halves, form an excellent 
substitute for spinach. Those two dishes, being digestible and slightly laxa- 
tive, are especially to be recommended to people affectes with liver diseases. 
As a green fodder, the sweet potato vines are greatly relished by pigs, by horses 
(although in moderation), by cows (whose flow of milk they greatly increase), 
and by sheep. The sheep-farmers of the West would provide their sheep with 
an excellent green fodder all the summer through by planting with the plough 
small tubers, or even roots, in their sandy (now nearly useless) patches. The 
Batata vines make also a good hay, but they are of no use for ensilage, the 
fermentation turning them into a kind of slimy, unpalatable substance. 
Horses do not take very easily to the tubers, but once they have tasted 
them they will eat them greedily. They get fat on them and put on a nice 
shining coat. Sweet potatoes are unsurpassed for increasing the flow of milk 
in cows and for fattening bullocks. Ted to pigs, raw or boiled, they produce 
the finest of bacon. Even the eggs of the hens fed on sweet potatoes seem 
to have an especially delicate flavour imparted to them. As for man, they are 
a food nutritious and healthy in every possible form. Children not seldom eat — 
them raw as in the old country they eat chestnuts, which last ‘they greatly 
resemble in taste. 
There is still another use of the sweet potato, of which the writer claims — 
to be the discoverer. It is the best-known substitute for coffee-beans, if cut 
into small pieces about a quarter of an inch square, dried on trays in the sun, 
then roasted on fire like the ordinary coffee-beans. 
It may be asked, Why should horse-manure and no other be used to make 
a hotbed? Because it is the manure of a herbivorous but non-ruminant 
animal. It appears to be richer in certain components than other manures, 
and has the remarkable property of being set into fermentation at any time 
by the use on it of the watering-can. 
It may further be asked, What were the advantages of growing sweet 
_potatoes on the flat, and not on ridges, as is done on the coast? The reason 
is that on the coast provision has to be made against excess of rain, whilst in 
the West every bit of moisture must be carefully husbanded. his is best 
secured by the flat system, there being no hilling necessary, except the little 
which is done naturally by the frequent use of the Planet junior. 
Sweet potatoes in the West have brought as much as ‘18s. per bag, when 
early and of good quality, and seldom do they bring less than 2d. per lb. 
At that time the same product from the east was being sold in town for 
4s. and 5s. per-bag. The sweet potato grown inthe Westis more mealy, keeps 
better and longer than that grown on the coast. This induces the belief that 
in years to come the West will get as great a name for its sweet potatoes as it 
has already got for its grapes. 
One farmer declared that it could never pay because there was too much 
bother about it. But both:r is the only thing which makes farming pay, whilst 
laziness, sluggishness, and carelessness will never.make any crop pay. 
