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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Successful New NC Farm Crops: Sweet Potatoes and Peanuts, 1944

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State University, Raleigh, as published in the Wilmington Star, April 17, 1944

One good result coming to North Carolina agriculture out of this war is that the people of the Sandhills have found two new crops. Last season, when the late cold killed most of the peach crop in that section, some of the orchardist turned to peanuts and sweet potatoes. They learned about the two crops because they had been urged to grow them as a war measure. The two crops did well on the deep sandy soils and, according to reports by good farmers, they are three to stay. One man went so far as to say that his sweet potato crop paid him better than did his tobacco. That’s saying a lot, because tobacco is recognized as the state’s No. 1 money crop. It was the crop that kept us going during the depression and it is the crop that will be planted 100 per cent of its farm allotment in 1944, whether food crops are planted or not. Many hardheaded Carolina farmers say that they intend to plant their full acreages to tobacco this season but they doubt seriously that full acreages of other crops can be planted due to a lack of labor.

The peanut crop, like tobacco, is troublesome to raise, to harvest and to market but its product is badly needed in our war economy and it is to be hoped that Sandhill growers plant more this season. Reports indicate that the peach crop has been ruined again. This condition may be spotted but it is a fact that the peaches that the great bloom of the early spring indicated.

Oil crops are needed bad. I have heard it said that peanut oil is used by the boys in the airplanes to cook up a little food while making long, lonesome trips over middle Europe or over the unchartered seas of the Southwest Pacific. Peanut oil burns with little smoke and residue. It is also used for many other purposes and is in great demand. The state goal cannot be reached unless new growers make increased planting sand some interesting tests have been conducted by farmers in Cumberland, Hoke, Scotland, and Moore counties. Much of this research was done in Sandhill territory and will be of value to all owners of sandy lands. 

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