PAGE.

CHAPTER I.--DESCRIPTION.

Origin.--Natural History.--Varieties.--Possible Range.--Analysis. 5

CHAPTER II.--PLANTING.

Soil, and Mode of Preparation.--Seed.--Time and Mode of
Planting.--Fertilizers.--Replanting.--Moles, and Other
Depredators.--Critical Period. 14

CHAPTER III.--CULTIVATION.

First Plowing and Weeding.--Subsequent Workings.--Implements.--
When Cultivation should Cease.--Insect Enemies.--Effects of
Cold.--Effects of Drouth.--Appearance at this Period. 27

CHAPTER IV.--HARVESTING.

When to begin Harvesting.--Mode of Harvesting.--Why Cured in the
Field.--Depredators.--Detached Peanuts.--Saving Seed Peanuts. 37

CHAPTER V.--MARKETING.

Picking the Peanuts.--Price paid Pickers.--Cleaning and
Bagging.--Peanut "Factories."--The best Markets.--Picking
Machines. 46

CHAPTER VI--USES.

Peanut Oil.--Roasted Peanuts.--Peanut Candy.--Peanut Coffee.--
Peanut Chocolate.--Peanut Bread.--Peanut Soap.--Peanuts as a
Food for Stock.--Peanut Hay. 55

APPENDIX.

A. Statistics. 65

B. Costs. 67

C. The Peanut Garden of America. 67

THE PEANUT PLANT;

ITS CULTIVATION AND USES.

CHAPTER I.

DESCRIPTION.

=Origin.=--The native country of the Peanut (_Arachis hypogaea_) is not
definitely ascertained. Like many other extensively cultivated plants,
it has not been found in a truly wild state. Some botanists regard the
plant as a native of Africa, and brought to the New World soon after its
discovery. Sloane, in his history of Jamaica, states that peanuts formed
a part of the provisions taken by the slave ships for the support of the
negroes on the voyage, and leaves it to be inferred that the plant was
introduced in this manner. De Candolle, in _Geographie Botanique
Raisonnee_, and his latter work on _L'Origine des Plantes Cultivees_,
strongly inclines to the American origin of the Peanut. The absence of
any mention of the plant by early Egyptian and Arabic writers, and the
fact that there is no name for it in Sanscrit and Bengalese, are
regarded as telling against its Oriental orig