The Tupelo journal., 1917-08-17

and clovn or bec.as- t e cyprcsri n
peanut politics" has designated a
low form of pa%rtisanship. Yet this
crop has long been important in
North Carolina, Georgia and Virgin
ia, with Shuffolk, Va, as the head
quarters of the industry. Here the
price of peanuts is to a large extent
established for the whole country,
and at prevailing prices peanuts are
in competition with cotton.
Beating the Boil Weevil.
The boil weevil drove many a Tex
as farmer to peanuts. From what
seemed to be a hopeless situation the
peanut has rescued him, and at the
same time rescued the oil-mill men
who were On the verge of a shut
down with their supply of cotton
seed diminished. The department
of Agriculture had long been advo-
eating a change from the single
crop standard set by cotton. AS
long a cotton was the only money
crop the arguments fell on deaf
ears, but, backed up by the boil
weevil, the campaign began to bear
fruit. The farmers began to give
part of the cotton acreage to pea
nuts. This presented a new prob
lem and the oil men began to ask
questions,
They found that many of the
growers were s'hogging down" the
peanuts; that is, they were turning
the hogs into the fields to harvest
the nuts, and were marketing the
crop son the hoof." The Depart
ment of Agriculture had proved
that a 40-bushel crop of Spanish
peanuts would produce more than
400 pounds of pork to the acre, and
supplied a good ration that needed
only a little topping off with corn
to harden the meat. Furthermore,
if the peanut hay is harvested be-
fore the hogs are turned in, the hay
q atOlC dlltlOot pays " III SIOWiiiS
of the crop, because it furnishes a
palatable food to which all kinds
of stock will turn eagerly from any
other kind of hay. And if that
were not enough, the peanuts, in.
common with other legumes, bear
nodules on their roots which gather
nitrogen from the air and put it in
the soil.
Helping the Oil Men
Practically no peanut oil was
made in this country prior to 1915,
and so far the oil men had not been
benefited; but it was brought to
their attention tina t the United
States, in 1914, wa importing 1885,
108 gallons of peanut oil, and A.
s549,789 pounds Of nuts. More than
half of the oil went to Chicago and
presumably went into oleomargarine,
and the lower grades into soap. The
oil brought more than cottonseed oil.
A few changes in the oil mills, having
to do largely with the cleaning of the
peanuts, and they were ready for the
extraction, and the peanuts began to
come to them. Recently, there has
been such a demand for the nuts
themselves, for manufacture into
products elsewhere, that the mills
have not been doing much extraction
because they could make more hand
ling the nuts themselves than they
could by selling the extracted prod
uct. A single manufacturer of pea
nut butter, for example, uses more
than 200 carloads of shelled nuts a
year and expects soon to go to 500.
carloads.
Bakers use immense quantities in
cakes and CONNECTIONS, and it is stated
that many a chocolate cake IS coated
with a mixture Of which peanuts iorm
a considerable part. With imports
cut off by the war, prices are high.
and give a present large impetus to
growing peanuts; and even at present
prices for cotton, peanuts are more
profitable where there is serious dep
relation by the weevil.
WHARF Peanuts Excel.
The South has q great deal Of san
sdy soil, and in many sections corn