The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1917-07-27
FAULTY SWEET POTATO
STORAGE HOUSES.
The Department of Agriculture
Learns the Southern Sweet Potato
Growers Are Paying Exhorbitant
Prices for Right to use Patented
Systems.

Ss
Washington, D. c., July 23-Ther'
is no mystery about building a salts
factory storage house for sweet pota
toes. Southern farmers who are
paying large prices for patented plan:
and equipment alleged to provide the
only successful way of storing sweet
potatoes, are being defrauded. Spe.
~cialists Of the United States Depart.
ment of Agriculture whose attention
recently has been called to instances
in which farmers have paid as high as
$3.50 for sets Of plans, do not hesitate
to brand such activities as plain hum
buggery. Plans of houses that in
corporate the simple principles of
storage and common sense methods
of construction, and which have prov
ed successful by years of careful
trial, are furnished free by the De-
partment of Agriculture to any
farmer who will ask for them.
Because reports have been made
and circulated in the South that
storage houses recommended by the
Department of Agriculture are not
satisfactory, it is believed necessary,
now that the time to provide ade-
quate storage for the coming harvest
is at hand, to correct such state
ments. One nan with plans to sell
has said that the shrinkage of sweet
potatoes stored in houses designated
by the Government specialists is from
16 to 20 per cent, while in houses of
design there ispractically no
shrinkage. The fallicy of such a
the Department specialists
point out, lies in the fact that shrink
age is essential to good keeping of
potatoes. Sweet potatoes stored
n the type of house recommended by
he Department shrink from $40 per
,ent-in weight, not bulk-by reason
# evaporation of moisture. A pro-
yer curing of sweet potatoes means
rid of surplus moisture, and
he type of house which the special
SITS suggest accomplishes this by COM
lining the ordinary principles of good
ommon sense methods withthanuep
entilation with common sense meth
DIS of construction.
Storage houses built according to
lans successfully the Department of
agriculture have been in use in every
tate of the south for five or six
ears. The department has no knowl-
dge of failure in any house built
nd operated strictly according to
recommendations. Four years of in
estigation with one hundred houses
nder observation showed that the av-
loss by decay, after an average
period of 124 days, was less
nan 2 l-2 per cent. In determining
MS loss representatives of the Dept.
.ersonally graded the potatoes in
ach house-a total of22S, 600 bush
Is. Every potato that had a decayed
Dot was thrown out and classed as
ecayed. In each case the potatoes
ere harvested, stored and cared for
y the farmers. In the Departments
wn storage house at Arlington, Va,
potatoes stored in October of
st year and removed the latter part
f June showed a loss of less than one
cent.
Farmers intending to build storage .
ouses should write to the Depart {
tent of Agriculture for Farmers
ulletin number 548, storing and !
larketing sweet potatoes" This !
ulletin gives plans and list of mater
lis needed and also tells how to con- !
ert buildings such as abandoned ten !,
mt houses into storage quarters. s