Book Description

Excerpt from The Culture and Diseases of the Sweet Potato The time is rapidly approaching when, as a food, the sweet potato will share equal honors with that of the white potato. Although a tropical plant, its commercial value has been recognized by the American growers of the south who adopted it as an important money crop. Furthermore, it has become a staple food product in the average American home. The sweet potato is a typical truck crop, thriving best in light sandy loams. With this in mind, its future is unlimited. Texas alone possesses enough typical land to grow sweet potatoes for the entire population Of the United States. Moreover, many of the southern states such as Alabama, Georgia and others can produce sweet potatoes sufficient to feed the entire world. With this crop rapidly coming into prominence and as knowledge of sweet potato storage increases, thereby reducing the losses from rotting, the day is not far distant when we will be in a position to export and to ship sweet potatoes to many of the European and Asiatic countries where this crop cannot be profitably grown on account of difierence in soil or climatic con ditions. The present great drawback to the more ex tensive production Of sweet potatoes is its highly perishable nature, both in the field and in storage. It has been estimated by the Plant Disease Survey of the United States Department of Agriculture that in 1917 the loss from the more important sweet potato diseases was per cent Of the total crop, or a net waste Of bushels. In the foregoing estimate the losses. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.