"Unable to allocate memory" when pasted into memo field in MS-Access database using RODBC

Question

I am trying to insert a new row into a table in a Microsoft Access database containing a memo field using the sqlSave function in RODBC, and I get the following error:

Calloc 'cannot allocate memory (1073741824 of 1 byte). channel request odbcUpdate mydata coldata [m,] test verbose nastring

By setting verbose = TRUE , the last line I get before the error:

 Binding: 'notes' DataType -1, ColSize 1073741823 

It looks like it gets the maximum size of the memo field, which is 1 GB, and then tries to allocate as much memory. The insert works fine without changing my code if I change the type of the field to “text” in Access. Is there a way to avoid this behavior or any alternative way to store more than 255 characters of text in a field?