The Bossier banner., 1891-02-05
FARMER AND PLANTER.
PEANUT CULTURE.
A Kentucky Farmers Experience with
the Spanish Pednut.

A Kentucky farmers Experience With
the Spanish relnut.
Seeing your two articles on peanuts
last week prompts me to give you my
experience with them this year. had
heard that the Spanish peanut would
mature more quickly, and could be
grown without so much banking up as
the common kind, and l determined to
try them. Planted them on the eighth
Of May, in rows three feet apart, and
dropped the shelled nut six to eight
inches apart, covering about two inches
deep. In about ten days they were
showing along the entire length ofrows,
and the ground was given shallow stir
ring with fiye-tooth cultivator, using
the smallest points. AS the bloom be-
gan to show profusely they were grad
uallY ridged up like Irish potatoes
though making no effort to cover up the
bloom as, when the bloom drops, small
needle-like spines are formed and these
shoot right down into the soil, and
the nuts are found on the ends of these.
They were given final plowing the
middle of July, and the vines allowed
to grow at will. They soon covered all
tho ground. and continued blooming
and pushing the little needles into the
ground till gathering time, about the
first frost
The only pest that bothers them is
the mole; but by burying some grains
of corn filed with "Rough on Rats in
their runs they were kept under con-
troll In harvesting the veins are caught
in the hands and pulled up, bringing
most of the nuts with them. The vines
are left to sun or cure for day or two,
just as is clover hay. and are then car
ried to shed to await the stripping of
of the nuts.
The foliage makes most excellent hay.
cows and horses away while putting in
the shed, even though they had fine
grass, and it was too soon for stock tC
need hay.
The nuts will have good deal of dir
sticking to them, which can be readily
washed off in raising for use in the fam
lily. but would be serious objection in
raising them on large scale for profit
] am inclined to think that it would
pay farmers to raise patch, say BY
sowing broadcast, thlnly, cutting thC
tops for hay-pulling up for the nuts as
much as the family would need,
and then turning hogs in t
clean up the nuts left in the
ground My children find the nut'
very acceptable in the absence of hiek
ory nuts and walnuts, and hardly day
goes by but they don't have the cool
put pan of them into the stove to roas
while she is getting dinner.
One is disappointed on first seeing the
Spanish nut, as it is much smaller thar
the kinds usually seen in the hucl1sters
but when the pods are opened the ker
nels are found to be so full and plum
that it makes up for the seemingly wan
of size There are no blanks either.
| Now for my yield. planted abou
two pints of the nuts, they, by placin:
six inches apart, making five rows, thir
teen rods long. -Four two-bushel coffee
sacks were filled. Both these and M
Irish potatoes were cultivated who'll,
by the use of cultivator with inter
changeable points. / also found it in
valuable in cultivating my Strawberries
Surely an enterprising farmer will no
long be without one The Iron Age AM
Planet Jr. are the best, of their class
that know of.-Walter Stewart, Il
Farmers Home journal.