The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-07-15

shipping cotton and rice to the north.
 MT. Cage was the owner of a cotton
 seed oil mill. He visited it one day and found that the farmers, who had gath
 cred about. were discussing the crop situation. One of them was cursing
 Texas and saying it was no place for a
 white man. He said he could get no
 money for his crop and it did not pay
 to farm.
 Hereupon MT. Cage broke in: What
 is the matter with you? am paying you good prices for your cotton and
 rice, am I not?"
 Yes. but I ain't made no cotton and
 I ain't raised no rice. I have been planting goobers. The peanuts grow all right, but I can't give them away"
 Well" rejoined MT. Cage, If you1l
 bring your peanuts to the mill here, I'll pay you 50 cents a bushel for all you
 have and you can tell your neighbors to do the same"
 I continue the story as Mir Cage told it to me. Said he:
 T had no idea that my bluff would
 be called and I thought it was safe, anyway. My idea of the peanut crop
 came from the few nuts I had seen on
 the Italian fruit stands and I thought I might, perhaps, get 100 bushels or so, which I could easily sell again. So, I went back to Houston, leaving the offer open. The next day I got a telephone from the manager of my mill as to what he was to do with the peanuts. How many have you?' asked. There are 50 wa gon loads that came in today he replie l. and thereil be twice that tomorrow We'll, we got 200 tons of peanuts that week and ths kept coming. We got so many that l , did not know what to do with them l 1 sold some in Texas, and, finally ship | ped the rest to the north.
 '1n handling the nuts they were now , and then stepped on and the kernels | ground into the floor. I noticed that 1 they left large grease spots and this made me think of grinding the nuts 1 into oil and oil cake. using our own l mill for the purpose. I then looked l into the matter and found that pea | nut oil was used largely in Europe i and in other parts of the world. I also I found that hulling machines could be | made very cheaEiy and I had some
 made for me. I went far enough to | see that the oil could be successfully produced. I then interested other cot I ton seed oil men and finally induced I the Fidelity Oil company here to put 1 in machinery, agreeing to furnish the ] peanuts I sent them coco tons the first ! year and they were handled at a good 1 profit Since then the business has i steadily grown. The machinery has | been improved and we have a large peanut oil oil industry in Texas. I un- l derstand that many other mills are l now in existence throughout the south and that many more will be crushing g peanuts this year."
 1 So much for the peanuts of Texas. 1 have heard similar stories as to how 1 like industry has grown up through | the cotton seed oil mills of other | states. The whole business seems to ] be the natural outgrowth of the use | of cotton seed as a by-product and the ] same mills everywhere will within a I short time be handling both crops. l But come with me to the big oil mill 1 of Houston and see how the nuts art l turned into oil and other products. The mill covers several acres. It con sists of large buildings of galvanized iron, filled with machinery. As we come near 1t we pass wagons bringing the peanuts in from the country. They are carried in bags of about two bushels each and are sold in the shells The bags are emptied into great bins, which contain thousands of bushels, and the nuts are taken by conveyors
 on an endless belt to the top story, where they pass through the cleaning and grading machines.
 They roll over long tables of steel with holes juest large enough for the
 peanuts to drop through, so that the
 pieces of vine and dirt are carried
 away. The next process Is hullng.
 This is done by rollers so graduate ed
 that they break the shell of the pea-
 nut without iniuring the kernel. The
 kernels fall out upon tables which separate the split or broken nuts from those which are whole. The shells are
 carried away and blown out much like the chaff from a threshing ma chine. The perfect nuts are carried along on two endlesy belts of canvas, on each side of which stand long rows of colored women who pick out any dirt or shells that may have escaped in the cleaning and hullng. At the ends of the belts the nuts fall into the bags in which they are kept until they go to the crushing and pressing ma chimes.
 Now stop and look at the peanuts as they come in from the farms They are not like the big peanuts sold at the county fairs and the circus, or hawkcd about on the streets. The best nuts for casting are the Virginia red or the Jumbo which sometimes contain sev- eral kernels in one pod. The nuts uTed here are little one or two podded nuts which, when hulled. have kernels about the size and shape of narrow- fat pea. Their shells are thinner than those of the Virginia nut. They are
 smaller. but they contain so much
 more oil that they weigh about the
 same. When hulled they are of Q light
 pinllish color and in the bags they look
 like large peas or navy beans. They
 are now about the same as the little
 round peanuts sold In the slot ma chimes. Many of the whole nuts are
 sold for this purpose and for making peanut butter. candy and meal of one kind or another.
 Leaving the hulling factory, let us go on to the grinding and pressing machines and see how the oil Is made. On the way we pass warehouse filled with the hulls. The manager tells us that the farmers have begun to use them for feed and that they have no trouble in selling all they can make at ss or $7 ton. Their feeding value Is about one-eighth that of alfalfa. Tn making the oil the nuts and shells are ground together, and the meal | therefrom Is cooked and pressed out. | They have machines which graduate