Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1899-05-19
ALL ABOUT PEANUTS
THE GOO5ER BECAME POPULAR JUST
AFTER THE CIVIL WAR.

There Asc Nearly -Four Million Bushels
Consumed in the United states Each
~fear-Came to This Country with this
First slaves From Africa.
The American people are evidently
very partial to peanuts" remarked q
large peanut planter in Virginia to the
writer recently, "for there are nearly
10000 0 bushels of them consumed in
the United States annually. Before
the civil war the peanut was only a
holiday luxury to the majority of the
people living in the north, the day
when the circus was in town, during
the country fair and the great and
glorious Fourth of July being the prin-
cipal occasions that the popular yearn-
ing for the nut was in any measure sat-
isfied. The product then amounted to
barely 500, 900 bushels a year.
AT the close of the war when the
soldiers returned north thousands OF
them had cultivated such a liking for
the nut, which they had often pulled
from the ground and roasted at their
campfires while in Virginia, Tennessee
and North Carolina, that the crop then
raised in these states didn't begin to
supply the demand. Wideawake farm
ers 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 growing A.
900, 900 bushels of peanuts a year-a
ract1+ do n1.,,rt o,+f,11,. - A. o;,;1
war and the habit the federal troops
contracted of eating large quantities
of the nuts. Naturally, the returned
soldiers demand for peanuts placed
them within reach of the rural popu-
lation in the north. and the nut soon
ceased to be a holiday luxury.
When the war broke cut most of
the peanuts consumed in this country
were raised in North Carolina. A
great many were also imported from
Africa. They were of inferior quail
ity. In fact, the best antebellum
peanuts were poor compared with the
nuts grown to-day. But the demand
for the nuts in recent years has not
had the effect of improving the North
Carolina product or increasing its yield
to any great extent. virginia and
Tennessee, however, woke right up
under the increased demand, and i'm
proved cultivation has produced a nut,
especially in Virginia, that is as near
perfect as it can be.
Il don't suppose here are many peo-
pie who know that the peanut came
to this country with the first cargo of
slaves that were landed on our shores.
1t is a native of Africa, and in its orig
inal state as full of grease almost as a
bit of pork. Cultivation and change
of soil have greatly reduced the oleag-
inous quality of the nut, although the
North Carolina variety has enough
grease yet to find a ready sale in
France, where it joins it's African an
cestor and cOttonseed in supplying not
a little of the olive oil we find in the
restaurants and family groceries. Nor
folk, Va, is the greatest peanut cen
ter in the world, and handles annually
200, 600 bags. or 5000, 900 bushels.
1T is a pretty sight to see a peanut
plantation NHtH tHe vines are III DlOs-
som. The blossoms are a bright yell
low and the vines are a 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 gath
cred in October the vine is ~ploughed
up, and the nuts hang to the roots
Vines and all are piled in cocks in the
field, and in twenty days the nuts are
ready to be pulled off, placed in bag;
and taken to the factories. There
they are cleansed cf dirt, assorted, pol.
ished in revolving cylinders and put in.
to bags ready for the market"