By F.H. Jeter,
Extension Editor, N.C. State University, Raleigh, as published in the Charlotte Observer and in the Wadesboro Messenger, April 29, 1943
The late David R. Coker of Hartsville was a dreamer as well
as a scientist and a business man. Such a combination of talent in one person
is a great rarity. Mr. Coker dreamed into existence one of the great seed
producing centers in the South and, with his capable associates, did much to
improve the yields and quality of crops grown in the South. If the results of
his dreaming paid him dividends, more honor to him because that is the
traditional American way.
But while he was a great dreamer, he was at the very same
time so very practical that he could adapt the results of his dreams to
everyday life. I liked that about him most of all. I recall back in the days of
the depression when agricultural leaders were calling upon the people of the
land to “live-at-home,” to grow more food at home, to assure themselves of a
food supply first of all, I heard the clear call from Mr. Coker to grow more
sweet potatoes.
His appeal was not couched in high-sounding phrases. He
simply said that every cotton farmer would who will to put in a patch of sweet
potatoes and called attention to the food value of the roots. He didn’t say
anything about their vitamin content because vitamins were relatively new at
that time. But Mr. Coker knew from practical experience that sweet potatoes
supplied some of the best food we could get at the lowest price per pound and
that the crop is about as easy to grow as any other produced in the South. I
recall even today some 15 years later, how he pointed out that the lowliest tenant
on the most obscure farm knew how to grow sweet potatoes and Mr. Coker gave
some indication of the yield that might be expected from a small patch of
one-fourth of an acre.
That was one practical way of assuaging the hunger pangs of
the depression era and unless I am mightily mistaken, Mr. Coker would again
champion the sweet potato if he were alive today. In the first place, there is
a ready sale for all produced above home needs. In the second place, the sweets
are selling at good prices particularly where they are of good quality, free of
disease, and properly cured.
In the third place, if the sweets are not needed at home and
cannot be sold profitably, they make the best kind of livestock feed; and,
since more meat is so badly needed over the nation, perhaps this is but another
way of producing some of that meat. For these three reasons alone, therefore,
this column makes bold to preach a little about growing a food supply and more
especially about adding sweet potatoes to the list of food crops. I think every
farm in the Carolinas should have at least one-fourth of an acre of sweets set
out this summer, and it were better if an acre or more were planted per farm.
The Nancy Hall is one of the tested old varieties that
everyone used to eat. Now we have gone more to Porto Rico variety with the
Louisiana strain and the North Carolina Strain No. 1 enjoying greatest
popularity. These three kinds have proved superior to all other varieties in
this section and if a person cannot grow his own slips this season, he should
buy at least 3,100 certified slips from some accredited plant grower. It will
take 3,100 slips to set one-fourth of an acre when the plants are placed 12
inches apart in rows 3 ½ feet apart.
Sweet potatoes seem to do best on a sandy or sandy loam soil
that is not too fertile. In other words, if the garden spot is very rich or is
of the dark or heavy soil, it is not a good place for the sweets. They will be
more subject to diseases in such a place. However, rather than not have any
potatoes at all, plant them wherever space may be available.
Prof. M.E. Gardner, horticulturist of the North Carolina
Experiment Station, says sweet potatoes are just coming into their own. He
foresees a day right soon when pigs and other livestock will be eating shoe-string
potatoes as a regular part of their diet. Chickens will enjoy a ration of sweet
potato meal from dehydrated or dried potatoes and sows will enjoy succulent
silage made from the vines and the tubers cut up together and forced into the
silo. The dried potatoes fed to poultry and hogs allow a full use of all the
big jumbos and the little strings. The tobacco barn may be used for the curing
or the more elaborate sweet potato curing house.
At any rate, the dried sweets
will permit easier and longer storage. This dehydrated product also gives the
livestock and poultry a more concentrated ration tan when the sweets are dug
fresh from the field, cut up and fed. As a matter of fact, Mr. Gardner says
tests made with selected logs of pigs by the Experiment Station show that the
sweets can replace corn. Most folks can grow more sweet potatoes on an acre of
land than they can corn.
About the vines, Mr. Gardner says, “Thousands of tons of
sweet potato vines are wasted in eastern North Carolina each year. Some growers
harvest before frost but a large majority of vines are frosted before harvest
and rendered useless for feed. Thus a highly nutritious and vitamin-rich feed
source is lost. We have been conducting tests since 1941 to determine the value
of the sweet potato vines and roots when fed to dairy cattle. We cannot give
definite results with only one year of testing but our results indicate that
milk flow, body weight, and general condition of the cows were as good as when
fed corn silage.” He added that sweet potato silage is also rich in carotene or
vitamin A. It looks, therefore, as if those who have been joking about this
great staple food of the South might have the laugh on them, and that, after
all, the Southern farmer knows what he is about. If he is wise, he will grow
still more sweet potatoes this year.
For more information
on David R. Coker, see http://www.knowitall.org/legacy/laureates/David%20R.%20Coker.html
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