The Covington leader. (Covington, Tenn.) 18??-current, 1917-07-19
FAULTY SWEET POTATO
STORAGE HOUSE PLANS
Southern Sweet Potato Growers Are
Paying Exhorbitant Prices for the
Right To Use Patented Systems.

Washington, D. C. There is no
mystery about building satisfactory
storage house for sweet potatoes.
Southern farmers who are paying
large prices for patented plans and
equipment alleged to provide the only
successful way of storing sweet pota-
toes, are being defrauded. Specialists
of the United States Department 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 proved
successful by years Of careful trial,
are furnished free by the Department
OF Agriculture to any farmer who will
ask for them.
Because reports have been made
and circulated in the South that stor-
age houses recommended by the De-
partment of Agriculture are not sat
isfactory it is believed necessary, now
that the time to provide adequate
storage for the coming harvest is at
hand, to correct such statements. One
man with plans to sell has said that
the shrinkage of sweet potatoes stored
in houses designed by the government
specialists is from Is to 20 per cent,
while in houses of his design there is
practically no shrinkage. The fallacy
of such a claim, department special
lists point out, lies in the fact that
shrinkage is essential to good keeping
of the potatoes. Sweet potatoes stored
in the type of house recommended by
the department shrink from 5 to 10
per cent. in weight, not bulk - by
reason of evaporation Of surplus
moisture. Proper curing Of sweet po-
tatoes means getting rid Of surplus
moisture, and the type of house which
the specialists suggest accomplishes
this by combining the ordinary prin-
ciples of good ventilation with com.
mon sense methods Of construction.
Storage houses built according to
plans suggested by the Department Of
Agriculture have been in use in every
state Of the South for FIVE or six years.
The department has no knowledge Of
failure in any house built and operat-
ed strictly according to recommends
tions. Four years of Investigation with
one hundred houses under observation
showed that the average loss by de-
cay, after an average storage period
of 124 days, was less than 21s per
cent. In determining this loss repre-
sentatives Of the department personal
ly graded the potatoes in each house
a total Of 228,000 bushels. Every po-
tato that had a decayed spot was
thrown out and classed as decayed.
In each case the potatoes were har-
vested, stored and cared for by farm
ers. In the departments own storage
house at Arlington, Va, sweet pota-
toes stored in October last year and
removed the latter part of June
showed a loss of less than per cent.
Farmers intending to build storage
houses should write to the Department
of Agriculture for Farmers Bulletin
54S, "Storing and Marketing Sweet
Potatoes. This bulletin gives plans
and lists Of materials needed and also
tells how to convert buildings such as
abandoned tenant houses into storage
quarters.