Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-05-28

tertll1zer .........-. IO.OO low
Harvesting ......... 900 lou
Total cost ....$44.5O $1,000
100 bushels at zoe to
81 bushel ...... 1000 10000
According to these calculations, the
net returns will be from So to $55
per acre.
1t will be noticed that there is a
wide difference in the cost of slips
and cuttings. This will depend upon
how they are obtained and in what
quantity. Slips bought in large guam
titles are usually secured for $3.50 a
thousand, sometimes as low as ST..
When sweet potatoes are bedded and
grown on the farm the, cost should
not exceed so cents a thousand In
growing a large acreage for the mar
ket, it is most practicable to get
sufficient slips to plant an acre as
early in the spring as weather con-
remainder of the planting by getting
planted early. Cuttings obtained in
this way will cost from rs cents to
so cents a thousand; this is the labor
cost for cutting the vines into cut
tings and carrying them to the held
where they are to be planted.
The yield assumed for the above
calculations is 100 bushels, yet it is
not unusual to have production of
125 to $50 bushels. 1t is an annual
occurrence to have yield of 200
bushels reported.
The sweet potato comes the near
est of all the horticultural crops to
being staple. 1t is more staple than
cantaloupes, watermelons, peaches,
cabbage, asparagus, onions, and 9TH
err perishable crops. In adaptability
to the state it ranks second to cotton.
The coastal plains with their warm,
SQn6U.1n9TTo soils ar the nrpSpnT
time more certain Of producing
normal crop of sweet potatoes than
of cotton, as the cotton crop can be
cut to almost nothing by bad sea-
son like the one of the summer of
1919, with the ravages of the boil
weevil being felt exceedingly severe
at the same time. The sweet potato
can be stored on the farm in a small
storage house and kept until spring.
During the great war the high prices
of all food crops stimulated the con-
struction of large commercial stor-
age houses. Many of these houses
are operating as storage warehouses
where the farmers can take their po-
tatoes and store them or sell them
at harvesting time.
In our publication of 1917 entitled,
"GroWing Sweet Potatoes in 'Geor-
gia," it was stated: There seems to
be opportunities for the business men
anu PROFESSIONAL uIOhSIS III
marketing the sweet potatoes" With
the perfection of storage methods,
this question naturally comes for
ward: If cotton men can build stor-
age places to which the farmers can
bring their cotton and sell it or store
it, why, then, should not those look
ing for an undertaking build storage
houses to which the farmers could
bring their sweet potatoes to sell or
store? This has not been worked out
by experience, yet it looks very prom
Using in view of the fact that individ-
ual sweet potato growers have built
such storage houses on their own
storing, grading, packing
and waiting until the market is good
to sell" Since that time, this idea
has been taken up by business men
and during the season of 1919 there
were stored IN such commercial ware
houses for sweet potatoes about 300,-
900 bushels.
The relationship between the price
of potatoes as they come from the
field and price in the spring is about
one to one and a half or two. That
is, if potatoes sell for 70 cents at
time, it is to be expected
that they will bring from $1.15 to
$3.50 from the storage house in the
spring. This is sufficient to pay a
fair storage charge of Is cents a
bushel and take up the loss in
weight; also it gives a reasonable
Drofit