Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1890-11-22
WAR "REMINISCENCES.
HANKERlNG FOR PEANUTS.

said retail dealer in nuts and fruits on
Sixth avenue, referring to a gray-haired
man who had stopped and purchasud
nickePs worth Of raw peanuts, "Never
heard OF the peanut habit, ehp You
don't like raw peanuts, either, do youp
thought not. No one does until he
has acquired the habit, and then he
wants his raw peanuts just as regular as
he wants his tobacco, II he chews to-
bacco, or his cigar, if he smokes. The
funny part of the peanut habit is that
1t is prevalent only among veterans OF
the late war who served either in Vir-
ginia, Tennessee or North Carolina
Those are the States where all the pea
nuts are grown. If you can remember
how things were before the war, you
will know that the peanut was then
only holiday luxury to the great mass
of people in this country. The day when
the circus was in town, during the coun-
ty fair, and the great and glorious
Fourth of July were about the only oc-
casions that the popular yearning for
the peanut was in any measure satisfied.
At those memorable times the nut was
shucked and masticated till it couldn't
rest, and it was only in the towns and
villages that the favored few could have
1t with them always. Before the war
there wasn't peanut roaster in the en-
tire country outside Of the big towns,
and the country dealers bought their
stock already roasted. To-day every
crossroads from Maine to California has
Its peanut stand and its Wheeling roast
er, and the great American nut has no
better standing circus day or Fourth
of July than it has any other day of the
year.
"a large proportion of the soldiers
who went to Virginia and Tennessee
and North Carolina from the North were
from the rural districts, where the pea
nut was only for their delectation on
gala days or their occasional visit to
town. So when they got down right
among the peanut patches they were
metaphorically in clover. AT first they
roasted at their camp-fres the peanuts
they pulled from the patches but it
wasn't long before they not only acquir-
ed a taste for them raw, but many of
them preferred them raw to roasted, the
same as a genuine old lover of the weed
prefers his tobacco undisguised by any
other substance, no matter how sweet or
toothsome it may be. The result was
that the boys discovered after time
that they hankered after their peanuts
pretty nearly as much as they did after
their tobacco, and when they came back
home the longing came with them.
What has been the consequence The
demand for peanuts increased so imme-
diately after the war that the crop
didn't begin to supply it. Wideawake
farmers saw the point, and garden
patches where peanuts had been grown
for nobody knows how many years were
abandoned for broad fields which were
planted with the popular nut, and to-
day Virginia, Tennessee, and North
Carolina are growing nearly 5000 600
bushels of peanuts year-a result due
almost entirely to the civil war and the
contracting of the peanut habit by the
soldiers. Naturally the returned SOL
diers' demand for peanuts placed them
within reach of the rural population to
the furtherest limit of 'waybacls, and
the nut ceased to be holiday luxury.
The floor of the baclwoods grocery is
now Uttered nightly with the shucks Of
peanuts hot from revolving washer as
thickly as it ever was the Fourth of
July in the old time, and the old
soldier can get his supply of raw
at Waybaclr Corners Just rs fresh and
regular, almost, as If he were still on
the old camp-ground and pulling the
nuts out of the ground.
when the war broke out most OF the
peanuts consumed in this country were
-. A
were imported from Africa. They were
of an inferior quality. In fact, the best
ante-bellum peanuts were poor compared
with the nuts grown to-day. In fact
the later demand for peanuts has not
had the effect Of improving the North
Carolina product or increasing its yield
to any extent Virginia and Tennessee,
however, woke right up under the in
creased demand and improved cultiva-
tion has procured nut especially in
Virginia, that is as near perfection as it
can be. For all that, many an old sol
der prefers the little thin-shelled,
strong favored Carolina peanut to the
best Virginia
"'It seems to git there better vet
eran said to me once. The Virginia
huLS dEc bSSO, pao pSopAS dtSiibIco W
their use have complained frequently
of late that they have apeculiar and dis
agreeable taste and smell. What caused
these was for a long time mystery. 1t
was finally learned that some times the
shells of growing crop are discolored by
prolonged wet weather, and as one thing
that recommends the Virginia peanut as
favorite in the market is its clean,
white, glistening she'll, q process OF
cleansing the damaged crops was invent
ed year or SO ago. In it certain chemi-
Gals were used that impregnated the
meat while cleansing the shells. 1t is
not likely that the artificial perfecting
of peanut shells will be continued, un-
less the evil effects of the chemicals on
the meat can be overcome.
II don't suppose there are many peo-
pie who know that the peanut came to
this country with the first cargo OF