The Portland daily press., 1896-01-04
ABOUT THE PEANUT.
How and Where They Grow and are Gull
tivated and Harvested.

The peanut is not nut at all, the Jour-
nal of Education declares. tits ground
pea, and is called nut because it has
nut-like shell. The plant to grow wild
| and it is not known where after the bios
som has ''tailen off" the stem upon which
it was plows or punches itself into the
ground several inches, where the seed
portion of the over begins to enlarge and
develop into a pale yellow, wrinkled,
curved "dop", with slight drawing to-
gether in the middle. If the stem does
not find its way into the ground within
day OF two after the flower falls off,
the stem dies. The surface of the pod is
netted
The peanut has never been known to
grow Wild and it is not known where it
is native A hundred years ago the
peanut was a leading article Of food in
Africa and the slave-traders loaded thei
vessels with peanuts and the negroes
lived on them on the voyage.
1t grows abundantly in Japan, China
and all East India countries. Tt was not
much cultivated in the United States I'M
til 1866. Their extended cultivation was
the result of the war. Until then there
had been large. importations from Africa,
but since 1870 this country has raised all
it has used. Virginia, North Carolina
and Tennessee produce most of the crop
of the United States. Under good con-
ditions, before the land has been Eek
hausted" by raising the same crop too
long, they can raise from 80 to 100 bushels
to the acre.
The peanut vine is better food for cattle
than timothy hay and almost as good as
clover. Peanut meal is good for cattle.
A bushel of good peanuts weighs about
twenty -two pounds. The peanuts are
plowed up, rather than dug up. The
pillow turn up the soil and loosens the
vine and pods from the earth, and they
are then pltoh-forked out of the ground,
the earth being carefully shaken from the
plants. Thy are plowed up in the morn
ing, pitched into rows soon after, and at
night pitched into a stack about a pole
seven feet high. Rails are laid below the
vines SO that the lower pods will not be
0s
The vines are so placed as to havs the
pods inward toward the pole. and q space
is left for air next to the pole. On the
top of the stack is hay or cornstalks to
keep cut the rain.
The stack is left from two to three
weeks, and then women and children
pick the good pods from the vines. This
is slow work and quite expensive Some
farmers leave the vines two days after
blowing before they are shaken out, and
some make their stacks IA feet high.
Some leave them in the stacks less than
two weeks, and then put them in barns
till they are ready to market them or
have leisure to pick them.
Some farmers pick them from the vine
by machines. The pods are cleaned by
machinery before being put in Sacks A
sack holds four bushels. Peanuts well
put up and kept in a dry place are good
for many years.
peanuts raised in the United States each
year. The rest of the world raises five
times DIS many as the United States, or
90 100000 bushels.
The peanuts are OF four grades. The
first three grades are for three grades of
wonders of roasted peanuts The fourth
are for confectioners for "burnt al
monds, +" or peanut candy.
The American people pay &c. 900, 600
for peanuts, not to eat as food, but to
nibble for fun.