PEANUT, Araehis hypogwa. Linn. Leguminosm. lEar th- nu t, Ground-nut, Ground-pea, Goober, l'indar.) Figs 73.5-740.
By L. C. Corktt.
Of the "nuts" produced in the United States, the peanut is the best known and most universally us.-I. It is perhaps most commonly , known as a roasted nut for eating, and in confections; but it has great impor tance as a soil -renovator and forage.
The product is really not a nut, however.
It is a ripened pod, with edible seeds, of a plant very like the pea and bean.
The peanut is annual, one foot or more high, more or less creeping in habit.
The leaves are abruptly pinnate, with two pairs of leaflets and no tendril. The flowers are of two kinds: the male (staminate) showy, and the female (pistillate) hidden or cleistogamoas flowers more or less clustered in the axils of the leaves. The stamens are monadelphous, but the alternate ones are short. The male flowers soon wither and fall away, while the female flowers begin to grow rapidly by the extension of the receptacle and flower stem (stipe), soon curving toward the ground, where they bury themselves and ripen the pod entirely underground.
History.
Little was known of the history or culture of the peanut outside of a comparatively circumscribed area in southeastern Virginia prior to the Civil war. Even now the means of its advent on this territory is not clear. Circumstantial evidence points to the early slave trade as the most likely means by which the nut reached North America. Peanuts were used as staple food for the mainte nance of slaves on the voyage across the Atlantic, and it is likely that this traffic was the means of bringing the peanut to this country early in its colonial history. This idea is given additional weight by the fact that the Carolina nut is very different in size from the Virginia or Spanish nut (Fig. 73S) and is accredited an African origin. The Virginia nut is probably of African origin also, but from a different section of the country than that from which the Carolina came.
Up to the time of the elder be Candolle, the native home of the peanut was in doubt. It had been very generally disseminated and thoroughly inured to a wide area of the earth's surface. Many botanists held to an African origin for the species, while others accredited it to India and South America. A careful investigation of the case by be Candolle has indicated the natural habitat of the peanut as Brazil, where six or seven other closely allied species are found. If Arachis hypoyma were not of ancestry it would be the only exception in the group, which seems improb able.
Distribution and ywld.
Although the peanut was brought to this country in colonial times, its extensive commercial cultiva tion is of recent development. The knowledge of the crop gained by the soldiers during the Virginia campaigns did more than any other single cause to disseminate the culture throughout the thirty eight states from which it was reported in the last census. It is now grown in commercial quantities in eight states, but it is estimated that one-half of the crop is produced in Virginia and North Carolina, and that more than one-half of the total n.arketed product of the United States is cleaned and prepared for the trade in Petersburg, Suffolk and Norfolk, in Virginia.
The magnitude of the peanut industry can be judged from the estimated crop of 1905, which is placed at 1-1,000,000 bushels, of which Virginia and North Carolina each produced about 4,000,000 bushels, Georgia about 2,000,000, with the re mainder scattered throughout the other southern states. The value of the crop that is placed on the market, exclusive of the part retained for planting and for home consumption, is estimated at $10,500,000, practically all of which represents an expenditure for an article now classed as a ldxury or confection.
Varieties. (Figs. 737, 738.) While seedsmen catalogue only two or three varieties of peanuts, there are a number of sorts which are distinct and are known by local names. The so-called Virginia nut varies from a nut of moderate size carrying two kernels to the pod, to the immense jumbo nuts carrying three or more kernels to the pod. The habit of the vine also varies from the broad, decumbent, running plant covering an area three or more feet in diameter to the compact, upright habit of growth in the bush type. In North Carolina there is a type of nut grown extensively and known as the Carolina which presents also the running and the bush type: of plant. The nuts are of smaller size than the Vir ginia but not so small as the Spanish. The Spanist nuts are small and of the bush type of plant and yield more than any other variety. (Fig. 737. For agricultural purposes and for the productior of forage the bush habit is a very decided advantage, as it can be more closely planted. In Tennessee, two or three varieties of nuts have been developed, one of which is worthy of mention, in that it produces a kernel carrying a very red skin which renders it especially attractive. This is known as the Tennessee Red, but is not generally recog nized as a distinct variety or catalogued by seedsmen.