WALDRON— THE PEANUT 305 



Linnaeus^ says it inhabits Surinam, Brazil and Peru, but does not 

 state whether it is wild or cultivated. 



Lack of Evidence as to its extra-American Origin. Among old world 

 literature antedating the i6th century, no mention is made. It 

 was thus unknown there before the discovery of the new world. 

 According to Watt^ all Greek, Latin, Bengalese and Arabian writers 

 are silent concerning the plant. This is very significant since the 

 peanut is too valuable a plant to have been known to Sanskrit 

 speaking peoples and not be used by them. Such a plant could 

 hardly have an antiquity among them without some record being 

 kept. Until quite recently a mention by Theophrastus of an Egyp- 

 tian grown plant was thought by some, to be a reference to Arachis, 

 but this has since been disproved. If it had ever existed in Egypt 

 it could still be found there. Furthermore no mention is made of it 

 in the works of Forskal*^ or Delile^ It is not recorded by any 

 early writer on the flora of India. According to De Candolle in 

 Dr. Bretschneider's study of Chinese works'', the statement is 

 made that its introduction into that country was in the sixteenth 

 century. It is not mentioned in ancient Chinese literature. This 

 suggests the possibility of its introduction there from Peru by such 

 expeditions as Magellan's. 



De Candolle states: "The antiquity of its cultivation in Africa 

 is an argument of some force which compensates to a certain degree 

 its antiquity in Brazil." The only points offered to indicate an 

 African antiquity are (i) the statement by Sloane'^ that it was 

 used as food on the early slave ships sailing between Africa and 

 America, and (2) that it now has a wide area of cultivation there, 

 both of which could very readily have occurred after its introduction 

 from Brazil. The writer would suggest that the very earliest ships 

 to sail from Brazil to Africa took sctdsoi Arachis to that place, and 

 the environment of the west coast being ideal for its growth, its 

 cultivation very early became widespread; and this has, during the 

 last century, developed into a great industry in the French colonies. 

 Pison, in his early Brazilian work figures a somewhat similar plant, 

 in its habit of fruit production, to Arachis, but states it to be African, 

 while he says Arachis is Brazilian. This was a species of Voand^eia. 

 To quote De Candolle again, he states, "the silence of Greek, Latin 

 and Arab authors, and the absence of the species in Egypt at Fors- 

 kal's time lead me to think that its cultivation in Guinea, Senegal, 

 and the east coast of Africa is not of very ancient date; neither has 



