Excerpt from Growing and Handling Sweet Potatoes in CaliforniaThe term seed as applied to sweet potatoes is a misnomer, just as in the case of Irish potatoes. True seed, developing from flowers and fruit, is seldom seen in the United States, although it has been known to form in southern Florida. Occasionally sweet potatoes bloom in southern California, but seed is rarely formed. However, seed has such a universal meaning among growers that it will be used in this discussion to mean the enlarged portions o-f the root, commonly known as sweet potatoes. Probably one of the limiting factors in the production of a profitable crop of sweet potatoes is the inability to secure good seed in those states where seed certification is not prao ticed. In California neither the demand for certified seed nor the acreage grown at present seems to justify certification. With pro-per precautions it is possible for the grower to select high quality seed from his own fields.The sweet potato itself consists of a root, originally a fibrous feeding root, which in the process of development has thickened for a greater or less distance from the central stem. On each such thickened root, or potato, are found four rows of lateral fibrous feeding roots, which usually disappear before the crop is mature, leaving only slight depressions where they were attached. Fro-m the neighborhood of the root scars, adventitious buds originate and under favorable growing conditions, sprouts are formed. These sprouts have an independent root system and are only weakly connected with the mother potato, fro-m which, however, they derive most of their nourishment. Until they are separated and set. In the Open field. The sweet potato has no true rest period, for the sprouts may start growing at any time under suitable moisture and temperature conditions and often do so in the field when harvesting is delayed and in the storage house in the later part of the storage season.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.