Dave Wilson, age 12, of Peoria, Illinois, for his question:

What kind of plant produces the sweet potato?

You can start a sweet potato plant growing right in your own home. Slice the bottom from an uncooked sweet potato and stick in a few toothpicks to form a stand. Place it in a glass of water with just enough water to reach the cut surface. The potato will sprout roots and a trailing vine.
Some people confuse the sweet potato and the yam. Both of them are brownish yellow tubers with sweet, mealy stuffing. But the two delicious vegetables are not related. The yam is a tuber of Asia and other tropical lands. The sweet potato belongs in a different plant family. It is related to the blue eyed morning glory and it is a native New World plant. However, like the yam, it cannot abide cold winters. We grow a few sweet potatoes as far north as New Jersey. But most of our crops are grown in the warm winter states of the South.
A new crop is started from bits of roots taken from older plants. They are set in flat boxes of damp, sandy soil and these hotbeds are kept warm in a greenhouse. In about four weeks, the roots sprout small new plants called slips. The slips are tenderly planted in the fields in rows about three feet apart. The slips in the rows are 12 inches apart.
The new greenery grows in trailing vines that soon cover the ground. There are several different kinds of sweet potato with different types of foliage, but all of them are trailing vines. One variety has pale green vines covered with ferny little pointed leaves. Another variety has dark, larger leaves growing from long, purple stems.
The greenery above ground is busy making food. And much of this food is sent down to be stored in the roots. Parts of the roots become stuffed with mealy, candy sweet goodness. The sweet potato plant plans to use them to produce a new generation of sweet potato plants. But the farmer has other ideas. Those buried stores of food are sweet potatoes, rich vegetables for human food.
When the summer growing season is over, the sweet potato crop is ready for harvesting. The potatoes tend to bruise easily and bruises spoil their candy sweet flavor. They must be dug up with care and lifted tenderly from the ground. Then they are spread out to dry for awhile, usually in a shed where they cannot be harmed by frost. The delicious vegetables' are ready for market in time for Thanksgiving .
Many of the most delicious, foods, it seems, are not good for us and we are told to eat them only in small helpings. This is not true of the delicious sweet potato. It is stuffed with nourishment. Every tasty heaping contains proteins, fats and sugars as well as vitamins A and C. And the mealy goodness provides more pep than high energy foods such as dried beans and peas.