Arizona republican., 1899-12-27
ITS 75O ACRES OF PEANUTS
One Grower Estimates Oklahoma's
 Yield at 37,0CO Bushels.

Oklahoma's peanut harvest is now under way and owing to the shortage Of threshers will continue until March l. Peanut growing is a new industry in Oklahoma, but there has been a decided increase in acreage during the last two years. The town of Perkins is practi- calIy the center of the peanut district s. P. Atherton of Wright, one of the first farmers to undertake the cultiva- tion of peanuts in Oklahoma, estimates total yield of 37 300 bushels, worth at 50 cents a bushel, $1S75O MT. Atherton said today:
 Most of Oklahoma's peanuts are grown in the counties of Logan. Lin coin, Payne, Pawnee and Noble; the greatest acreage being in the vicinity of Wright. Near Eden, Noble county, is a farm which has fifty acres planted to peanuts. It was believed early in the spring that there would be 1,O00 acres of peanuts to be harvested this season, but the dry weather caused much damage, both in yield and quail ity. The total acreage will amount to probably 750 and the average yield will not be less than fifty bushels to the acre. Last year Jefferson Bowen, near Wright, raised 100 bushels to the acre The growers will be able to get fifty cents bushel for their crop. The best quality of peanuts this year is worth Si a bushel.
 An inferior crop of wheat might dis courage farmer, but the peanut grow CTS are not feeling bad. l can tell you why they are not. The cost of culti- vatinS an acre is no greater than cul- tivating an acre of corn, with the ex- ception that peanuts require one more blowing than corn. A fifty bushel yield of peanuts at 50 cents a bushel is the same as thirty bushels of corn at 15 cents bushel. I mean by that com parison that climatic conditions that would produce one would produce the other. The corn in this instance would bring S4.50 an acre while the peanuts would bring s25. You can see at once why farmer can have a comparative ly poor peanut crop and still do better than if he had raised a poor crop of corn. The neighbors of farmers who are raising peanuts have been so great ly encouraged by what they have seen during the last two years that there DldNIeu to peanuts in Oklahoma next year.
 Jefferson Bowen, J. W. Durst and myself own the only peanut thresher west of the Mississippi river. We are so crowded with work that We will not get through threshing earlier than March 1. We charge 10 cents a bushel for threshing, polishing and grading the nuts. Owing to the prospect of a greater acreage next year, farmers in the neighborhood of Chandler will buy a thresher, as will those in the neigh bOrhOod just east of Guthrie.
 ''The industry has not yet grown to the importance of making it profitable for q wholesale peanut buyer to estab- lish himself in business here, and the lack of such buyer has been an in convenience to growers. Next year we hope to see a wholesale warehouse at Guthrie. In these warehouses the nuts are recleaned and sorted again for diff ferent markets.
 T have experimcnted with a new va riety this year, called the early Span ish, nut that ripens about a month earlier than the common Virginia va riety. The Spanish is a small nut with only two kernels in q pod. Ii has a very superior quality, however, and is preferred to all others by candy manu- facturers. The acre yield is less than the common variety, but the market price is much greater. The nuts are not the only yield of a peanut crop. The vines are preferred by live stock to Kaftir corn, corn fodder or alfalfa. The dry vines are fattening and milch cows given access to peanut straw stacks produce an abundance of rich butter. I believe that when our farm CTS become better acquainted with the possibilities of the peanut they will make it's cultivation one of the impor- tant industries of Oklahoma. l am from Virginia. the home of the peanut, and l know from experience that there is no better soil and climate for pea nuts than is found here. Guthrie dis pa tch,