Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-03-28
PEANUTS TO RESCUE
Coolers Working Revolution
in Southern States.
BOON TO COTTON RAISERS
Helping Live Stock Industry and
Serving to Break Up Zone
Crop System.

Peanuts are reported by the Depart
ment of Agriculture TO be working a rev
olution In the middle southern states
This is the subject of special report by
w. r. Beattie to DR.. b. T. Galloway
chief of the bureau of plant industry
The development of peanut growing is re-
garded as immensely important 1t is
helping To break up the zone crop syS-
TEN of the cotton belt. It is furnishing
the farmers with a new ready money
crop and is helping the live stock indus
try, while at the same time il is supply
ing the American market with good
many thousand of dollars worth of ma
terial formerly imported.
The area in peanuts this year in parts
OF Louisiana. Arkansas, Texas Missis-
sippi and Oklahoma amounts to 100000
acres and is worth to the farmers about
s2OOO,OOO. This is big showing consid-
ering the newness of the industry.
Rival for Olive Oil.
The Department of Agriculture here has
been running small technical laboratory
making peanut butter and cold pressed
peanut oil. The latter is new table
dclicacy and is being sold under It's own
name and on It's own merits in competi-
tlOn Win IIf pest imported owe OIL III
makes a very clear. white oil that has a
peculiar flavor of its own. 1t Is valuable
for cooking and salads and is liked by
many people better than olive oil.
The peanut butter that Is being turned
out by the departments little factory is
said to be the finest of that particular
delicacy ever put on the market 1t
has not been put on the market Vet, as
a matter of fact, but samples of it have
been passed around for testing in the
~
is made after extracting 10 per cent of
the oil, and has none of the Objectionable
oily taste that has prevented peanut
butter from being popular with many
people.
Much of the peanut interest of the new
area is due to the advent OF the cotton
boil weevil. This insect has unquestion-
bly, worked a great deal of hardship in
the cotton belt states, but it has not been
an unmixed evil by any means. 1t has
shown the people of the south that they
must go in for diversified farming-in
fact. has forced them to that step more
than years of preaching from the De-
partment of Agriculture ever did.
Corn and Peanuts Big Factors.
Corn and peanuts are becoming the i'm
portant ready-money crops of the sections
of southern Arkansas, eastern Texas,
Oklahoma, Mississippi and Louisiana
where nobody ever thought in any other
denomination than bales of cotton 1t
has been found by experiment that the
big Spanish peanut is best suited to the
region. 1t is a valuable crop as a ready
money producer. II is one of the best
preparations of the ground for a cotton
crop. because 1T is a nitrogen gatherer,
and it is fine forage crop, because the
vines are fed to livestock on the place
and much of their value as fertilizer is
returned TO the fields in the form of
manure.
Mr.. Beattie is enthusiastic over the
success of the work. The speed with
which the culture is spreading is shown
in the case of Mississippi. Work was be-
gun there three years ago. The follow
ing year there were 1900 acres put in
peanuts. and in 1911 there was an area
of 5000 acres.