The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-09-03
PUT TIE PEANUT
 ON THE PUSHCART
Death of Thomas B. Row. land Recalls His Efforts to Popularize the
 Cooler.

WHICH mas become one Of great impor- tance in the United States, was re- vealed to the world at large a few days ago, with the passing of Thomas 5. Rowland of Norfolk, Va, who was known in that neighborhood as the father of the goober. He died at the ripe old age of ss in the State of his birth. Rowland was the first man to realize the importance of the peanut as commercial opportunity. New York City, as well as Norfolk, Va, had an important part in the de- velopment of the peanut industry, for 1t was to New York commission men that Rowland looked to help him get the peanut started on it's way to fame Rowland was the original promoter of the peanut as an item of trade, and how he got the industry started is told by a writer in The Peanut Promoter. No matter where you go now, you will find the peanut on sale, and 1t is real ly hard to believe that they were once hard to sell. But it is fact that the present popularity of the peanut is due to extensive publicity and aggres- sive salesmanship. There are now grown in the United States millions of bushels of peanuts every year, and the yield does not meet the demand.
 Even before the civil war;" says the writer, Rowland Brothers who were produce merchants in Nor folk-had made some attempts to get New York commission men to sell pea nuts. The Rowland firm at that time was the oldest business house in Vir- ginia, having been established in 1906 by the Rowland boys father. This elder Rowland, by the way, owned a clipper ship, and he was one of the first to install steamboat service be- tween Norfolk and New York.
 When the war began, Thos. Row land entered the Confederate servcie, and was sent to Europe as a Captain to buy supplies and to outfit block ade runners. In this work he spent four years, and then, the war ended, he came back to Norfolk and re-en- tered the produce business. Virginia was in the midst of vast ruin that included commerce and agriculture. For a while Rowland dealt largely in
 beans and peas, for they were crops quickly and easily raised. But be- | 1OAS 4OIlS 4lO lOOh up pSduuIS dSd1IlJ because he believed they possessed possibilities far beyond the common vegetable crops and he knew that Vir- ginia sadly needed staple product.
 He knew, too, that peanuts grew splendidly in Virginia soil.
 At that time no one else seems to
 have seen any future in this crop. Here and there in Virginia and North
 Carolina the farmers had little gar den patches of peanuts, for the Afri- can slaves had brought in the seed long before. But as a money crop peanuts had absolutely no value. No body had ever dreamed that some day peanuts would be on sale on the street corners in every city and village in the land.
 Rowland knew the farmers person ally, and he began talking peanuts to them. Then, as he was able to buy small quantities from their gardens, he shipped the nuts to New York and asked the commission men to sell them. The commission men wrote back that they couldn't. Peanuts!
 Who wanted peanuts? They might
 be all right for negroes down South, but they were poor trash for white folks anywhere.
 "One day negro without a job went into the Rowland store. He had a voice like a steamboat whistle, and Thomas Rowland put him out on the streets to shout! "Hot-roasted peanuts five cents a cup!" His success was astonishing. Pretty soon Italians in
 New York began bawling peanuts in
 Manhattan. Likewise they were suc- cessful beyond expectation. The Ital-
 ians went at the vending of peanuts
 on a systematic plan, and for many years they almost had a monopoly. In New York, Boston, and Concinnati the
 Italian commission men established a
 hard-and-fast system for recruiting and financing peanut peddlers of their own race. To Italians with a big voice the commission men would sell a pushcart and a bag of peanuts on
 credit. However, the peddler had to
 sell certain quantity of nuts within
 a given time, or the cart was taken
 away from him.
 While the sale of peanuts on the
 streets was being pushed all over the country, Thomas Rowland and his as-
 sociates in Norfolk were trying to in-
 duce the farmers to produce enough peanuts to supply the demand. Row , land talked peanuts necessarily to the , farmers, made himself an authority , and not only showed the people how to raise more peanuts, but how to i'm , prove the quality.
 Down in Greenwich Street, in New York, an Italian named Petroni had = l a aoTo ho11co He was one of ) those men who made himself the cen
 tre of a coterie of peanut peddlers } and he knew the business to be good one. While up in Connecticut on a l visit, he chanced to be a spectator at } a performance of the Barnum & Bai- ley circus, and after the show went y ested in peanuts.
 ''The peanut feature of this famous circus gave tremendous publicity to the Virginia product, and there was g. rush for peanut concessions every 1 where the nuts could by any possibil-
 ity be sold.
 ''The peanut in commerce has grown far beyond the nurture Of any ] one man; but business history should 3 accord MT. Rowland the honor of nursing 1t into it's larger growth through ups and downs, through good . crops and bad ones, through difficult ties and prosperity-he never waVer-
 ed in his devotion to a purpose. And perhaps this is why you eat peanuts CONVENIENT EXPENDITURES Washington. Sept. 3-Government