Sweet Potato
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Sweet Potato. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a trailing vine related to the morning glory , moon flower, and cypress vine. It is not related to the potato nor to the yam, though often called a yam in the south, especially by the colored people. It is well to remember also that in the South potato means sweet potato--the others are called Irish or round potatoes. The sweet potato was found in cultivation by the Southern Indian, and is doubtless native to America. The vine seldom blossoms. It produces no seed. Field crops are planted by placing a layer of tubers in a hotbed and covering them with a few inches of sandy soil. Inside of a few weeks the bed will be full of sprouts which may be broken from the tubers and set in rows. If replaced in the hotbed, the tubers will bear a second crop of sprouts. A bushel of tubers will produce 3,000 to 5,000 sprouts. A little later, additional plants may be started by setting twelve-inch cuttings of the running vine. The latter are not so sure to live, but they produce quite as fine tubers. Under improved facilities for transportation, there is a tendency to raise each vegetable where it grows best and ship it to market in less favored localities. A belt of fine sweet potato country runs around midway between the mountains and the sea through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and North and South Carolina . This belt extends northward through Virginia into New Jersey . Texas and California are also large raisers of sweet potatoes. The Ohio Valley would feel slighted if left out of the list, but Georgia is the leading sweet potato state. Not less than 50,000,000 bushels of sweet potatoes are raised in the United States annually. Immense quantities are shipped to market in barrels, and twice as many would be in demand if some inexpensive method of preventing winter decay could be devised. Sweet potatoes are raised by over a million farms in the United States. Half a million acres yield about 43,000,000 bushels a year with a farm value of $20,000,000. 2026 Editor's Note: This page uses language about race that was commonplace when the book was published and is offensive by today's standards. The text has been left exactly as it was printed, rather than cut or softened, so that the historical record — including how ordinary such language once was — is preserved. (Ed: BR 2026-07-22)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a genus of plants belonging to the natural order Convolvulacæ. B. edulis, the true sweet potato, is a twining or climbing plant, with stems 5 or 6 feet long trailing on SWEET POTATO the ground or clambering over neighboring shrubs. The leaves are 5 or 6 inches long, heart-shaped at the base; the flowers pale purple, closely rese resembling those of the common convolvulus. The native country of the plant is a matter of conjecture. An author of the 16th century found the root much used by the Indians as an article of food. It was introduced into Spain about 1519, and the roots were known in England some time before the introduction of the potato. English supplies in those times were obtained from Spain and the Canary Islands, and the roots, when steeped in wine or made into sweetmeats, were regarded as restorative of failing vigor. The plant is cultivated in India, China, Japan, the Malayan Archipelago, throughout tropical America, and in the southern United States, in southern Europe, the Canary Islands, Madeira, and North Africa. In favorable conditions in the United States the yield per acre is from 200 to 300 bushels. B. jalapa, a species of Mexico, though purgative, is so called on account of its being very common in the vicinity of the Mexican town of Jalapa. B. paniculata, which has a very wide geographical distribution, is commonly y cultivated for food in W. tropical Africa. From the seeds of another species of Batatas the textile material named Natal cotton is obtained.