Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-01-05
GROWTH OF PEANUT INDUSTRY.
American People Now Consume Nearly
100000 Bushels acknowledgements of
500 Per Cent in Sd Years

American People Now Consume Nearly
! 100000 Bushels acknowledgements of
| 500 Per Cent. in 80 Years.
| THE American people are evidently
very partial to peanuts" remarked a
| large peanut planter in Virginia to the
writer recently, for there are nearly four
million bushels of them consumed IN the
United States annually. Before the civil
| war the peanut was only holiday luxury
! to the majority of the people living in the
town, during the county fair and the
great and glorious Fourth of July being
| the principal occasions that the popular
yearning for the peanut was in any meas
ure satisfied. The product then amounted
| to barely $4,000 busheles a year
AT the close of the war, when the SOL
diers returned north, thousands of them
had cultivated such a liking for the nut
which they often pulled from the ground
and roasted at their camp fires. when in
| Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina,
that the crop then raised in these States
didn't begin to supply the demand.
| 'Wideawake farmers saw the point, and
small garden patches where peanuts had
! been grown for generations, were soon
abandoned for broad fields and to-day
| Virginia and North Carolina are knowing
| 100000 bushels of peanuts a year-a re-
suit due almost entirely to the civil war,
and the habit the federal troops contract
ed of eating large quantities of the nuts.
Naturally the returned soldiers demand
for peanuts placed them within reach of
the rural population in the north and the
nut soon ceased to be a holiday luxury
When the war broke out most of the
peanuts consumed in tbs country were
raised in North Carolina. A great many
| were also imported from Africa They
were of inferior quality. In fact, the best
ante-bellum peanuts were poor compared
with the nuts grown to-day. But the de-
mand for the nuts in recent years has not
had the effect of improving the North Car
DINA product, or increasing it's yield to
any great extent. Virginia and Tennessee,
however, woke right up under the increas-
ed demand, and improved cultivation has
produced nut. especially in Virginia, that
| is as near perfect as it can be.
Il don't suppose there are many people
who know that the peanut came to this
country with the first cargo of slaves that
were landed on our shores. 1t is a ma
| tive of Africa, and in it's original state
as full of grease almost as a bit of pork.
Cultivation and change of soil have great
| ly reduced the oleaginous quality of the
nut, although the North Carolina variety
has enough grease yet to find ready sale
in France, where it joins it's African an
cestor and cottonseed in supplying not
little of the olive oil we find in the res
taurants and family groceries. Norfolk,
Va, is the greatest peanut center in the
world and handles annually zoe, go bags, or
| 100000 bushels.
1t is pretty sight to see a peanut
The flowers are a bright yellow and the
vines are vivid green. AS soon as the
| blossom appears a fine branch forms on
! the vine and shoots down into the ground.
| The peas, as the nuts are called on the
plantation, form on the shoot beneath the
ground, like potatoes.
| when the crop is gathered in October
the vine is plowed up and the nuts hang
to the roots. Vines and all are piled in
cocks in the field, and in 20 days the nuts
are ready to be pulled off, placed in bags
and taken to the factories. There they
are cleansed of the dirt assorted, polished
in revolving cylinders and put into bags
ready for the market. "-Washigton Star.