Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 204, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1910 — PEANUT TRADE VAST [ARTICLE]

PEANUT TRADE VAST

INDUSTRY THAT NOW REACHES SUM OF $36,000,000. Largest Part of the Crop Is Consumed From the Street Stand—Most Nutritous of All Nut Foods. The person who buys a nickel’s worth of peanuts to munch at the ball game, to feed to the squirrels in the park, or to gladden the hearts of the kiddies at home, scarcely realizes that he has contributed to an industry that test year farmed a $1,000,000 crop, and which placed on the market in various forms reached the enormous sum of $36,000,000. But it is a fact! This little seductive nut —a resolution to “eat just one” is soon forgotten whose birthplace is America, wds, until comparatively recently, unappreciated either as to the “money In them,” or as a really nutritious product. Today the peanut plays an important part in pleasure, from the swell dinner party to the ever-present democracy of the circus, ball game, or picnic. After all, what is a ball game, a picnic, or a circus without the peanut accompaniment? By far the largest part of the crop is consumed from the peanut stand, the little whistle-sign of the roaster being the signal for the average youngster to suggest to dad or ma that some of them would be very acceptable, and the paternal or matefnal parent’s willingness—nine times out of ten —to invest. Yet there are millions of bushels that go to the fattening of hogs throughout the south, the feeding of poultry, while the vines often cured as hay, feed thousands of head of cattle, and even old Mother Earth is nourished by the roots of the plant, which furnishes nitrogen to it from the air. The result of all this is that scientists claim that the peanut, which in the past was not very highly regarded, is the only food staple that will at once nourish man, beast, bird and fields. It is the most nutritious of the entire hut family, rich in tissue building properties, containing glucose and carbohydrates—and is the cheapest. Beyond the shadow of a doubt it is first from both a dietary and economic standpoint. The fact of the matter is the peanut in about every way is in a class by itself as regards price, average number in pound, edible part, waste, and fat. They average about 350 to a .pound at a cost of 10 cents, the edible portion is 73.6, waste 26.4, and the amount of fat is placed at 80 per cent. These are remarkable figures when one stops to consider them, and brought out more clearly when compared with the small Texas pecan, its nearest competitor, which sells for over a third more, averages but 216 to a pound, has a waste of 61.8 per cent., edible part but 38.2, and contains 68 per cent, of fat. * The farming of peanuts during the past five years—not longer than this — has become an established industry of this country. At present about flveBixths of the crop comes from Virgina and most of the balance from Tennessee, Georgia, West Virginia and the Carolinas, although most of the southern states contribute some. As the peanut industry has increased so has the use of all nuts grown mightily as an article of food during the last decade, and. the entire family now forms a most important part of the diet of the physical culturist and vegetarian.