Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1901-01-23
PEANUTS AND COOLERS.
EoW CROPS ARE RAISED, GATHERED
AND PREPARED FOR MARKET.

aTc ciEbt-Sauso oouoA iva &'-'--Se
-6,o0o,ooe Bushels n Fair Years Crop
TRis is peanut time in the South.
Going through eastern Virginia and
North Carolina the traveller can see
through the car window row after
row of what appear to be round
bushes. They are the stacks or
shocks OF peanut vines hung around
sticks waiting to be placed upon
wagons and carried away for strip
ping. Some of the larger fields Will
contain 1000 of these stacks, yield
ing from so to Is bushels Of
nuts to the acre. Most of the nuts
grown lii Virginia and North Caro-
lima are the goobeis: Tie goober Is
to the actual peanut what the qua
haug Is to the genuine clam. The
shell usually contains but two ker-
nels. This is the nut with which the
Italians load their wagons and sell in
paper bags on the street corners. The
real peanut which answers to the
Rhode Island clam Is smaller than
the goober. The kernel Is about the
size Of large pea and its flavor is
sweeter than the other variety. 1t Is
grown principally in North Carolina
and Tennessee. Occasionally a few
get into a bog of goobers, but very
seldom. as they are shelled and sold
for from 10 to Is cents
peck more than the others. They go
into candy paste and to the oil fac
tories of Europe.
The peanut farmer begins planting
as soon as the frost is out of the
ground in the spring. The shelled
nuts form the see1 and about two
bushels are required for an acre. In
few weeks the plant gets above the
earth and begins to leaf out A field
of peanuts looks much like field of
clover, and during the war many of
the Northern soldiers mistook clover
fields for peanut patches, while hunt
ing for something to vary their ra-
llons. The plants grow in rows, very
much like potato vines, and are cul-
tivdted in the same way. Weeds will
soon choke their growth, and the
pickaninnies on the farm are kept
busy during the summer in wedding
out the patches with their fingers.
Nowadays the harvesting is done by
what is called plow, made espe-
cially for the purpose. 1t is drawn
by one mule and cuts the plants off
close to the roots. AS soon as
enough has accumulated on the
plow to form a stack it is thrown
off and massed around short pole
stuck in the ground. The stack is
formed with the leaves outside. and
the vines are wound around it as
tightly as possible to protect the nuts
from the weather. The plan is some
what similar to that of binding
wheat. About three weeks exposure
seasons the nuts and dries the
vine, so that the pods are ready to
be picked.
The picking is the. most expensive
operation of all and takes the most
time. Whether in the barn or on the
field, all the work has to be done by
hand. The nuts are thrown into
large baskets and the vines made in
to large stacks or stored away in the
loft, for they make hay which is
really more nourishing for the aver
age mule than timothy. The vine is
little too rough for horses throat,
but it is luxury to the average
southern mule, who will grow fat on
peanut hay, and nothing else. In all
fields some of the vines will be black
ened and the nuts of poor quality.
These are left on the ground and Ia
ter the pigs are turned into the field.
They eat everything that is left eX-
cept the roots. The nuts are not very
fattening, but they give the porker
very sweet flavor. The famous
hams cured in some parts of Virginia
owe most of their quality to the fact
that the pigs have lived partly upon
nuts before being fed the sour milk
and garbage from the farmers kitch-
en-.
In half a dozen towns most Of the
peanut factories" are located. The
factory is merely a place where the
nut is shelled or the shell polished
for the market 1t is a curious fact
that peanuts with clean. glistening
pods will sell for Is to 20 per cent.
more at retail thar those with large,
dirty-looking pods, although the ker-
nels may be just as good, so the nuts
intended for the bag trade at the cir
Gus and on street corners are
secured in large iron cylinders. Then
they are carried to fans, which blow
the heavier nuts into one part Of the
factory and the little ones into an
other part and at the same time re-
move the dirt which was not taken
off the shells in the cylinders. The
dark, partly filled nuts are shelled by
machinery and sold to confectioners,
while the other ones are carried by
sort of endless chain apparatus into
bags, each of which will hold about
100 pounds. AS fast as a bag is
filled it is sewed with English twine,
marked with the weight and proper
address and sent to the wholesale
peanut dealer, who makes anywhere
from 25 to so per cent. profit in deal
ing with the Italians, who are his
principal customers. Of late years a
quantity of the bag peanuts has
gone to manufacturers of cheap
coffee, to be roasted and mixed in
with the coffee berry and then
ground, to be sold in packages as
choice Mocha and Maracaibo.
While most of the American nuts
are grown in eastern Virginia and
North C".olina and Tennessee, the
peanut fields are beginning to be cul-
tivated in parts of Louisiana and Ne
braska. Many of the fields in North
Carolina contain apparently nothing
but wet sand. and the dark green of