The Newtown bee., 1907-12-20

pounds of powder placed underneath the works. At daybreak on July 30 1864. the mine exploded and for garrisoned by two hundred men, si, guns. and necessary camp equipagt was blown high.in mid air. leaving { yawning crater. one hundred feet long, fifty feet wide and twenty feet deep, Mangled bodies. death and sorrow were everywhere. A very complete descrip- tion of that event may be found in Ab- botts' History of the Civil War. vol. 2, chapter A.
 Of all historic places none is so inter- esting to the tourist. as what is known now as "The Crater" and no visit to the city and its environs is quite com plete unless it is visited. It is en- closed and an admittance fee of 25c is exacted from every visitor.
 A little more than forty years have passed since the close of the war, in which time the city has risen Phenix like from amid the ruins and ashes of the past, to become the foremost one of its size in all the south, and why? Its location, its facilities for transpor- tation, the indomitable pluck and push of it's business men, backed by an in- dustrious.and thrifty people, are some of the secrets of its expansion and prosperity. Located on the Appomat- tox river twelve miles above its june tion with the James, it has river nav igation to thesocean. Three competing lines of railroad center here. the Nor folk and Western. the Atlantic coast line, the Seaboard Air line. Thirty passenger trains arrive and depart daily from the city. As a manufactur- ing city it ranks third in Virginia and has laxge wholesale trade. Dinwid- die county leads in the great tobacco and peanut producing crops, and for the manufacture of the one and the preparation of the crop of the other for market, Petersburg leads the world. There are six large peanut factories in the city with their. own buyers in the peanut sections who buy direct from the growers. The price paid for the nuts generally averages about one dollar a bushel. Two kinds of nuts are grown, the Virginia nut, weighing twenty-two pounds in the shells. The nuts are cleaned, assorted, polished and graded for the market. Every man, woman and child, who can raise nickle, knows the pleasure that comes at circus time of having a side pocket stuffed with peanuts with which to feed themselves or the monkeys, but few, comparatively have SC n the grow ing crop or traced the manipulating of the nuts from the field, through the wholesale dealer, the jobber, to the vendor, who cries "'ere's whar you git a big bag of fine roasted peanuts for a nickle." "
 A grower told us that the output of the crop has been on the increase since the war, that the crop returns fifteen to forty bushels per acre. He also said it was good crop that would average forty bushels to the acre. They will grow on soil too poor for corn or tobacco and will bear neglect better than most crops and planters some times raise it as between crop, that catches such time as can be given it with mule and scratcher. Virginia and the Carolinas are the peanut growing states, the annual output of which is reported as 7,500, 900 bushels of Vir- ginias, and 100000 bushels of Spanish annually. The Spanish nuts have a smaller, sweeter meat than the Vir- ginia, and are generally shipped shelled, and used largely by confec- tioners and are also eaten as nut and much preferred by some to the Virgin ias. Petersburg is the second source of supply in the country for peanuts generally, and for Spanish peanuts 1t is the leading market. We should not overlook the fact, that factory in the city grinds peanut shells into peanut flour. We leave it to the pure food' law to tell us in what or with what it is used. Harvesting the crop comes in October. A peanut blow is run along the row under the roots of the vines, turning them out, follower gathers the vines with the nuts hanging by the roots and shaking off the dirt, the vines are stacked in a conical form around a stake five or six feet long, the tops laid toward the center, which leaves the nuts on the outside to cure, the stacks four or five feet through. When