White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1924-11-21
Will SWEET POTATOES PAY?

Is the sweet potato deStfneQ tc
be one of the very profitable crops
grown in the Priest Rapids Valley!
Coming here a little over year ago
from Yakima, E. w. Steffen pur-
! chased the Emil Cords tract near the
Columbia river north of town and
believing that the soil and climatic
conditions in this valley would justi-
fly an experiment in sweet potato
growing he planted a part of the
place to that crop. While his ex-
pertinent was on comparatively
small scale the yield was enormous
and as the market took the crop at
good price the venture proved
very profitable.
In the belief that Mr.. Steffen's
experience might be of interest to
its readers, the Spokesman asked
him this week to write it up and his
article follows:
"In response to your request for an
article on sweet potatoes, I beg to
say am very glad indeed to give
you what limited experience / have
had with them.
"I want to say first of all that I
take very little, if any, credit for
introducing sweet potatoes into the
Priest Rapids Valley, they having
been grown very successfully, while
perhaps not in large quantities, by
several people before came here.
F. c. Koppen of Wahluke has been
making extensive experiments with
them for the past ten years with
wonderful results. I visited one man
at Pasco who has been growing
them for five years and still another
at Richland. Another man had in
six acres at Prosser this summer and
several acres the summer before.
do not know of a single case
lutte failure. In some of these cases
the crops have been light, due pos
sibly to wrong varieties or improper
conditions of the soil.
Il am asked nearly every day
whether it is best to plant sweet po-
tatoes or 'yams". The question is
not unlike the one "Is it better to
plant potatoes or spuds?" After di-
gesting all of the government liter
ature and several other books on
sweet potatoes, am of the opinion
that there is positively no distinction.
Sweet Potatoes are divided into eight
different groups, one from Florida
known as the Florida group, one
from China. known as the Shanghai
group, etc. One gourp came from
Cuba and the natives there called
them "yams." Some of these were
very large and for short period
thereafter the larger ones were call
ed "yams" until now, of the eighty
four true varieties of sweet potatoes
in the United Skates, there is not a
single variety that hasn't the name
yam" annexed to In some locality
or other.
'The government has only recently
succeeded, after several unsuccessful
attempts to properly classify sweet
potatoes in eight different groups
and eighty-four varieties. 1t seems
that no two localities have the same
name for the same potato, the eighty
four different varieties being known
by SIX hundred and sixty-eight nam
es, some varieties having as many
as fifty or more names.
1T is scarcely necessary to men,
tion the Importance of the sweet po-
tato crop, it having grown from a
mere local Southern product locally
consumed less than one hundred
years ago, to being today second
only in commercial Importance to
the Irish potato and if all of the
Columbia river valley were planted
to sweet potatoes, it would still be
necessary to import them from the
South to supply the demand in the
Northwest.
while the sweet potato is adap-
ted to the South and near South, it
has been proven beyond doubt that
it can be grown very successfully
here. All varities will grow here
but there are some that far .excel
others, principally those of the Gu
ban group.
They seem to lack the sweetness
here that they have in the South but
make up for 1t in texture, the fir
mer and finer texture being prefer
red. Sweetness is not an essential.
as more or less sugar is added to ali
sweet potatoes when cooked and Il
makes little or no difference whether
you add little more or less sugar.
In some cases the production here
far exceeds anything reported BY
the government in the South.
Experiments to date prove the
~1@>o~>o>~>~~~~~N~N~ >o>oyo1o1o1o..,