The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-10-08

Before the Civil war the Virginian
who had a cow or a horse or even
poultry and worked vegetable gar
den, however small, gave a corner Of
his lot to the raising of the goober
pea, known to the outside world as the
peanut and to science as Arachis
hypogea. Somebody brought it origi-
nally from Brazil as cheap and
nutritious food for stock. The garden
er pulled up the vines with the nuts
clinging to them and stored them in
the hayloft to be fed to the animals.
During the war the Union forces
captured a mail bag in which among
other letters was ond from a Confed-
crate officer to Virginia girl. It con-
tanned some information of value about
the movement of troops. and also said:
"It is plain we are congenial souls.
for /, too, am fond of the despised
goober.''
From this it is inferred that the lik-
ing for the peanut fifty years ago was
persons ate it, but without roasting.
AT that time it was by no means a
common field crop in the Old Dominion
and no one thought OF it as a source
of revenue. Accident revealed it's value
as a means of enriching the soil.
Where it was left to decay the ground
yielded remarkable crops of other
kinds.
bacco is bad for the soil, quickly ex-
hausting its heterogeneous element. In
the few years Immediately following
the war the impoverished Virginian
planter raised all the tobacco he could
and soon this crop hardly paid for the
work it required. Lands We're offered
for the traditional song. Then came
the wider planting of the peanut and
the increasing fertility of the soil.
Soon the popularity of the peanut
in the North led to it's cultivation
pretty generally throughout Virginia
and the Carolinas. Now 1t is the
favorite nut for man and is grown in
every Southern State and in Califor-
mia, Oklahoma and Missouri and in
several Northern and Western States.
Tt has become so important that
there is published in this State the
American Nut Journal, which is de-
voted chiefly to the peanut interest.
1t would be hard to estimate the num-
Der of italian pushcart merchants in
all the cities of this country who de-
pend largely on the sale of roasted
peanuts. The circus or menagerie
would be poor thing without pea
nuts.
The value of the peanut crop in the
United States exceeds SIS, 00e 000 1t
reaches about 400, 900 pounds and
nearly half a million persons are en-
ployed in its cultivation. Some 40O, 900
acres of land are devoted to its culture
for market purposes.
Said market gardener here: 'tThe
peanut will grow on soil that cannot
be used for anything else and if prop
erly gathered and carefully marketed
it will yield 800 to the acre. The weeds
must be kept out and a little lime is
needed to keep off bugs, and that is
about all the attention it calls for"
The scientists of the Department of
Agriculture at Washington have COM
mended the peanut as nutritious and
wholesome food for man and beast. |
To the former it supplies protein and
ash materials and to the animals of the |
farm it is particularly valuable in COM
bination with corn and other car
bonaceous foods, notably for young and
growing stock
As an improver of the soil it is equal |
to any leguminous crop. It's chief vir- |
tue is that it does not consume the |
nitrogen of the soil, the rapid exhaus- |
ton of which, together with slow pro-
duction by natural processes, has led |
to melancholy forebodings by chem
lists. The tubercIes of the roots col |
lect nitrogen from the air and feed |
it to the plant without impoverishing |
the land.
An enthusiast on the subject of the |
peanut, one of the prominent planters |
of this region, says: ut is one of the
safest and surest of Virginia products. /
It is rare that it falls below 900 pounds /
to the acre and there is always a ready /
market for it at paying prices. either to |
supply the demand of the cities or as /
fodder
You may be surprised to learn its
many uses merely for home consump- /
ton. Its history is much like that of |
the cotton plant. You know the cot
ton grower once found the seeds a
Nuisance and an expense, while now
the profits from the seeds and other
parts of the plant exceed those from