The Peanut Plant Part 3

=Peanut "Factories."=--It does not fall within our present plan to describe these establishments, any further than to give the reader, outside of the peanut belts, an idea of them. Formerly, many peanuts were sent into market without being properly a.s.sorted and cleaned, and it was found that, by a.s.sorting and re-cleaning them, a little margin of profit was left after paying expenses. One step led to another, and various appliances and machines were brought into requisition, until now, large buildings are devoted solely to the purpose of cleaning, a.s.sorting, and storing the peanuts. Some of these establishments employ many hands, both male and female, to clean, separate, and re-bag the peanuts ready for the trade.

Thus it has happened, that the business of cleaning peanuts has been taken out of the hands of the farmer, reduced to a system, and made a new industry. In fact, a division of labor; and now the merchant buys the peanuts of the planter just as they are picked, and the "factories,"

so-called, clean and a.s.sort them for the large buyers. Still, the merchant will pay more for Peanuts in nice order, and perhaps it would even now pay the farmer to properly clean and a.s.sort his crop before selling it.

=The Best Markets.=--A few years ago, the city of Norfolk was the sole market for the Virginia and North Carolina planter, and New York for the wholesale dealer. Later on, Wilmington, Petersburg, Richmond, and several of the smaller towns began to buy peanuts, until now, every village and trading centre throughout the whole peanut belt, has become the repository for the crop of its own immediate section. Every year, the market has been coming nearer and nearer to the planter, until now he finds it about as profitable to sell to the nearest country merchant, as to ship to town, and sometimes more so. Frequently, the country merchant becomes the agent of some large buyer, who furnishes the capital, and he buys all the peanuts he can, at figures very near the ruling market price. Of course, this works very much to the planter's benefit. He sees his crop weighed, he escapes the middleman, with all the attendant expenses, such as commissions, freight, etc., he sells for cash, and he does not have to wait several weeks for returns.

Under this state of affairs, the home market, or home buyer, becomes the best for the farmer. And with the constantly increasing demand, and close compet.i.tion between buyers, the cleaning factories are also coming nearer the farmer, and already exist, or will soon exist, in each of the counties and sections where the Peanut is much grown. Thus the planters generally, will soon be enabled to sell directly to the cleaners, and the latter to the wholesale buyers. So the planter will get market prices, without the trouble of going to market. Perhaps the compet.i.tion will eventually grow sharper still, until, not only will the peanuts be cleaned and bought at home, but will also be manufactured into oil, flour, and the other commercial forms, in the sections where they are grown. In everything, the tendency now is, to carry the factories to the raw material, and not the latter to the factories. It is not to be presumed that this crop will prove an exception.

Thus it is, that the farmer's work is being narrowed down, by the inevitable and beneficial law of the division of labor. The planter may now turn his attention wholly to the cultivation of the crop. How to order it, so as to realize the largest possible yield from the smallest possible areas, is now the problem before him. He finds given to his hands, a great and growing staple with great, and still unknown, possibilities, and he sees the demand becoming larger and more earnest, until now, the buyer comes to his very door, and puts down the ready cash for all of this crop that he has to sell.

Of course the planter must, and will bestir himself, to meet the ever-increasing demand. To do this with profit to himself, he must study this crop from beginning to end, he must learn the nature of the Peanut plant fully and correctly, and discovering how to increase the yield per acre to its maximum, unravel the secret of how to grow it at the least cost per bushel.

=Picking Machines.=--It may be well here to allude to a question, which, doubtless, the thoughtful reader has already asked himself, namely: Why does not some one invent a machine for picking peanuts rapidly, instead of having to do it by the slow and tedious process of hand-picking? In reply we state, that numerous attempts to do so have been made, but with very indifferent success. None of the many picking machines, that have hitherto been offered, have given satisfaction. It seems that they cannot be made to do the work, and most planters appear to have given up looking for any help in this direction. Very recently, the writer has heard of one picking machine that is said to be giving satisfaction, but he has not seen it, or conversed with any one who has done so. That an efficient machine of this kind is an impossibility, is not believed, but whether anything can be made that would pay better than the old method, is the question. The planter must await developments. Perhaps some ingenious mechanic will take up the problem, and give the planter a perfect and cheap picking machine. Here is a field for ingenuity. A good machine would be a profitable invention. Who will try?

Having now traced the Peanut plant through the whole process of its planting, cultivation, harvesting, and marketing, the practical part of our task is ended. If the directions are such as will enable the beginner in this branch of rural industry, to successfully cultivate and manage this crop, the end will have been attained, and this little book will not have been written in vain. It has been prepared for those having no practical acquaintance with the cultivation of the peanut crop, not for the old and experienced planter. And yet, without egotism, it is believed that even the latter may find something in it that will be of use to him. Practices vary in different sections, even among men of the same calling, and inasmuch as methods herein detailed, will be found to vary from those practiced in North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, or the far South, so will the planter in those States who may chance to read this treatise, be enabled to compare our methods with his, to see wherein they differ, and perchance may find here some point or plan a little better than his own.

It only remains now to give, in another chapter, some of the many uses of the Peanut.

CHAPTER VI.

USES.

Some of the more important uses of the Peanut and its plant are here given. In the course of time, as new discoveries are made, it is not improbable that the Peanut may subserve other valuable ends. But if no more uses than are now known, are ever found for any part of this plant, it will continue to occupy an important position among the agricultural productions of the country. Its importance will increase year by year, its value being too well understood and appreciated for it ever to lose its place among our leading crops.

=Peanut Oil.=--The use that gives the Peanut especial value as an American crop, is the place it occupies as an oil-producing plant. The oil of the Peanut is regarded as equal in all respects to sweet or olive oil, and may be employed for every purpose to which that is applied.

This gives it at once a commanding position, and were no other use found for the plant, this would give it great importance among the economic productions of our country. Olive oil is largely consumed for culinary uses, in medicine, and in the arts. Except in California, the olive has never been planted upon a commercial scale in this country, and it is very important that we possess a plant, that will obviate our dependence upon foreign oil. Of course, it is not within our scope to describe the manufacture of Peanut oil. The farmer is satisfied with knowing that his crops are in demand, and need not trouble himself about the methods by which they are converted into this or that useful commodity.

It is stated that a bushel of peanuts (twenty-two pounds in the hull) subjected to the hydraulic press, will yield one gallon of oil. The yield by cold pressure, is from forty to fifty per cent. of the sh.e.l.led kernels, though if heat be used, a larger quant.i.ty of oil, but of inferior quality, is obtained. The best Peanut oil is nearly colorless, with a faint, agreeable odor, and a bland taste, resembling that of olive oil. It is more limpid than olive oil, and becomes thick when exposed to a temperature a few degrees below the freezing point of water. Peanut oil is not one of the drying oils. During the late war it was extensively employed in the Southern machine shops, and regarded as superior in its lubricating qualities to whale oil. For burning it is highly esteemed. The chief consumption of the oil is in making soap. For the production of oil for soap making, there were imported into Ma.r.s.eilles, France, from the West Coast of Africa, in one year, peanuts to the value of over five millions of dollars.

The residuum, or oil cake, may be sold for cattle feed.

=Roasted Peanuts.=--Almost every person residing in the eastern section of our country, must necessarily know something of the value of roasted peanuts. One cannot pa.s.s along the streets of any of our larger cities and towns, without encountering, at every turn, the little peanut stands, where roasted peanuts are sold by the pint. They are kept for sale in numerous shops, they are peddled on the railroad cars, and sold to the loungers at every depot. Roasted peanuts are more common than roasted chestnuts once were, and almost everybody eats them. Even the ladies are fond of them, and frequently have them at their parties.

It is safe then to say, that everybody likes them, and finds them palatable, healthful, and fattening. From a pig to a school boy, no diet will fatten sooner than roasted peanuts. A person can live on them alone for an indefinite period, if eaten regularly and with moderation. The a.n.a.lysis of the Peanut shows it to be rich in the alb.u.minoids, or flesh-forming elements. Roasted peanuts, therefore, form a very useful article of diet, and fill a place between the luxuries and the necessaries of common life. Wherever they have been once introduced, they cannot well be dispensed with; and as their use in this respect is constantly extending, this purpose alone would serve to keep the product before the public as a salable article. Once let the Peanut find its way to the great cities of Europe, and roasted peanuts be sold upon the streets there, as well as here, and the demand for them will far exceed the present limits, and the cultivation be necessarily extended over a much wider area than now. There is every reason to believe that the demand for the crop will continue to increase.

=Peanut Candy.=--This is another of the purposes to which the Peanut has been applied, and serves to ill.u.s.trate how varied and numerous are the uses of this remarkable production. Flat bars of sugar candy are stuck full of the broken kernels of the roasted nuts. It is quite good, and forms a pleasing addition to other kinds of confectionery.

=Peanut Coffee.=--Here again the Peanut fills a useful end, especially in times of scarcity, or high prices for coffee. Taken alone, and without any addition whatever of the pure berry, the Peanut makes a quite good and palatable beverage. It closely resembles chocolate in flavor, is milder and less stimulating than pure coffee, and considerably cheaper than Rio or Java. If mixed, half and half, with pure coffee before parching, and roasted and ground together, the same quant.i.ty will go as far and make about as good a beverage as the pure article, and a better one than much of the ground and adulterated coffee offered in the market. Indeed, if people will adulterate their coffee, it were much to be wished that they would use nothing more harmful than the Peanut for this purpose.

For making the beverage, the Peanut is parched and ground the same as coffee, the mode of decoction the same, and it is taken with cream and sugar, like the pure article.

=Peanut Chocolate.=--True chocolate is made by roasting and grinding to a paste, by the aid of heat, a very oily seed, the Cocoa-bean. In the preparation of chocolate a great variety of articles are used to adulterate it and diminish its cost. Some of these, such as sugar and starchy substances, are harmless, while others, such as mineral coloring matters are injurious. Peanuts are largely used to adulterate chocolate, and so far as wholesomeness is concerned, are not objectionable. In containing a great deal of starch and oil, peanuts resemble the cocoa-bean, though without the nitrogenous principle, _theobromine_ (which closely resembles _caffeine_), to which its nutritive qualities are largely due. Peanut chocolate is made in some Southern families by beating the properly roasted nuts in a mortar with sugar, and flavoring with cinnamon or vanilla as may be desired. Peanut chocolate, on so high an authority as the author, the late William Gilmore Simms, is vastly superior to peanut coffee.

=Peanut Bread.=--If peanuts are first mashed or ground into a pulp, and then worked into the dough in the process of kneading, no lard will be required to make good biscuit, and the bread will have an agreeable flavor, different from that imparted by lard, but of such a mild and pleasant taste as to be entirely unlike the peanut flavor. The skin of the kernel must first be removed, or it will impart a bitterish and nutty taste. There is some difficulty in doing this. Scalding does not do it very well. Strong soda water or lye, will quickly loosen it, so that it may be readily removed by rubbing with the hands, but either fluid would soon convert the Peanut into soap, and is, therefore, impracticable for this purpose. Could some cheap and handy machine be invented, that would remove the skin from the kernel without loss, no doubt large quant.i.ties of peanuts would be used for bread-making purposes. Whether or not it would be economical, we cannot at present say.

=Peanut Soap.=--If a fair article of soap can be made of corn shucks, as was done in the South during the late war, then there can be no doubt that a better quality can be made from Peanuts. Surely a vegetable product containing such a large per-centage of oil, would be easily acted upon by lye. The writer has not experimented in this direction, but we hear of some who have tried it, and who say they have made a good and serviceable soap from the kernels of the Peanut without the addition of other oil or grease. We have no doubt but very good soap may be made from the Peanut, but whether the manufacture of such an article would be profitable at present prices, is another question. Perhaps for ordinary laundry soap it would not, but for the higher grades of toilet soap it might be. Here is a field for experiment, and yet we mention this use, as well as those of bread-making and coffee from the same article, as one of the possibilities of this plant, rather than a result to be looked for in the near future, if at all. It is well that manufacturers, and all others, should know what is capable of being done with this promising product. The more we can multiply the uses of any product of our farms, the wider will be the demand for it, and this is what the farmers desire.

=Peanuts as Feed for Stock.=--This is a use for the Peanut, about which we can speak with confidence, and from experience. We now refer to the peanut pod, including, of course, the kernel, and not the vine or hay.

Every kind of stock, horses, cows, sheep, hogs, and poultry, are exceedingly fond of the Peanut, and will leave any other food to partake of it. Cows, horses, and sheep eat the whole pod, hull and kernel together. Hogs and poultry (except turkeys) reject the hull, eating the kernel only. Turkeys, as a rule, swallow the pod whole, and a real live turkey can hide away quite a quant.i.ty of the nuts in a short time, if allowed free access to them. In fact, all animals do not seem to know when they have enough of this food. All stock fattens readily on them.

The hog will lay on flesh faster on a diet of peanuts, than on corn, potatoes, or any other product with which the writer is acquainted. The poorest scrub of a hog, turned into a peanut field, after the crop is removed, and where he can get nothing but the pods he may find by rooting for them, will change his appearance in three days, and in a week, will be so much improved as hardly to be recognized as the same animal. As a pork producer we believe that the Peanut has not its superior in any clime or country. It is a thorough fat-former. Poultry intended for laying should be sparingly fed with it.

But we would not leave this subject without a grain of caution. While all stock fattens rapidly on the Peanut, it must be confessed that the fat is not always of the best quality. It is less firm and more oily than the fat derived from Indian corn, nor will the lard from hogs fattened upon peanuts show that pearly white and flaky appearance, which is the marked characteristic of pure lard made from corn. For this reason, most planters in the peanut belt, feed their peanut-fed hogs on corn only for two or three weeks before killing them. This is done to make the lard firm and white, and in this manner, good pork and lard are produced at only a trifling cost. The hogs get nearly fat from the detached peanuts left in the field, and which otherwise would be lost.

In this way the peanut-planter derives a very important benefit from this crop, apart from its value as a source of ready money. Were there no other use for the peanut, it would still pay well to raise it for making pork. In this case, the planting and cultivation would be the sole cost, as the animals would do all the harvesting. A very small field would fatten quite a number of hogs. Poultry intended for market, might well be fed on Peanuts, instead of corn or oats. The fowls would fatten faster and at less cost. In fact, we believe it would be economical to buy peanuts at ruling prices for fattening stock, especially old stock.

=Peanut Hay.=--If dug and cured before frost touches them, and before the leaves fall to any great extent, peanut vines make a very good provender for all stock. Some say it is better than blade fodder for horses and mules, but we are not prepared to advance this extravagant claim for it. It is, however, certainly an excellent article of fodder for cattle, sheep, mules, and horses, and if many sap peanuts are left on the vines, stock that is not worked much, will need no other feed during the winter months to keep them in good condition.

Most planters, accordingly, make it an object to try to save the vines for hay, and aim to dig the crop before they are injured by frost.

After a killing frost touches them, the vines are next to worthless as a feed. In fact, frost-bitten peanut vines are harmful, rather than beneficial, to stock, often causing colics, and endangering the life of a valuable horse or mule. Peanut vines, even the best of them, unharmed by frost, should not be fed very largely to horses. There is always a good deal of grit and dust upon them, and much of this taken into the stomach, cannot but be more or less harmful to the animals.

And yet, despite these few drawbacks, peanut hay has proved to be a valuable forage, and one that the peanut-planter could not well dispense with, inasmuch as so many do not make enough of other forage to serve them, and must, therefore, depend on the peanut crop to help them out.

Thus the planter is benefited in several ways through this crop. He gets a valuable staple to sell, and one that always commands the ready cash, he fattens his hogs on the pods left in the ground, and he secures a large amount of very good hay in the vines. Thus he is doubly benefited, and no matter how low the price of peanuts may be, the farmer does not, and cannot, ordinarily, lose much on the cultivation of this great crop.

If he does not risk too much on commercial fertilizers, which no planter of this crop ever should do, he runs little risk of suffering any crushing loss thereon.

Such is a brief but connected view of the Peanut crop from the time of planting the seed, to its sale and manufacture. The views and practice here advanced are all from original sources. We have not drawn upon any other writer for any part of this treatise. Indeed, save a few short articles scattered through the agricultural press of the past ten or fifteen years, we know of no source from whence material could be derived. So far as we are aware, this is the pioneer work in America on the Peanut plant. This being the case, it must, of course, be quite defective. We might easily have made it a larger book, and perhaps some few years hence, when the field and subject shall have enlarged, it will be found desirable to revise and enlarge this treatise. For the present, we must be satisfied with smaller things, and remain content with a few practical directions rather than an elaborate work. Until that time, if it comes at all, we lay aside the pen, and turn our hands (as it has been our wont to do during the past few weeks) to actual labors in connection with the Peanut plant.

APPENDIX A.

STATISTICS.

It was our design, at first, to present a somewhat full array of statistics in relation to the Peanut. This, however, was soon found to be impracticable. The more we studied the few data at hand, the more were we convinced of their utter unreliability. The fact is, so far as the writer is aware, there are no credible data of this crop existing.

No authoritative and systematic attempt to gather and compile the statistics of the Peanut has ever been made, and until this is done we shall never know its full extent and value. The "estimates"--mere guesses--of certain mercantile houses and newspapers, to express the bulk of the crop are, beyond a doubt, far wide of the mark. The following from a Georgia paper, is of this cla.s.s:

"The goober[2] plays a more important part in commerce than might be supposed. We are all aware of its value as a social factor--of its influence upon oratory, music, and the drama--but how few of us know that one million nine hundred and seventy thousand bushels of this savory nut were consumed in this country during the twelve months ending on the thirtieth of September, 1883. These figures do not include the local consumption--say, for instance, in the rural districts of Georgia, where every substantial farmer has a patch of his own.

"The figures relating to the goober crop make a column in the various prices current, but Georgia is not credited with any part of the crop.

It seems that the goobers of commerce, so far as this country is concerned, are raised in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. In 1882, Virginia raised one million two hundred and fifty thousand bushels, Tennessee four hundred and sixty thousand, and North Carolina one hundred and forty thousand, making a total of one million eight hundred and fifty thousand. The aggregate value of the crop amounted to two million dollars. It is estimated that the peanut crop of 1883 will be at least two million bushels.

"We regret that Georgia has no place in these estimates. Goobers can be raised in this State as readily as in Virginia, and there is no reason why our farmers should not take advantage of the demand for them. The little patches for home use, could easily be increased to patches calculated to yield a comfortable supply of pocket money. As Georgians are known as goober-grabblers, there is no reason why they should not be known as goober-growers."

Still, these estimates serve a certain important end, and give an approximate idea of the magnitude of the crop. It is safe to say that it amounts to nearly three million bushels annually, and were all the information gathered that could be, it would doubtless be greater still.

It is high time that the corps of statistical reporters to the National Department of Agriculture, were required to give the data for this crop, as well as for others, and some of them of less magnitude and value.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] See remarks on the term goober, in note on page 9.