118 



$18.34 per acre. If corn were valued at 50 cents per bushel 

 the net returns for an acre of peanuts would be reduced to 

 114.86 after subtracting the value of the corn. 



Here we have over |18 per acre as the return for peanuts 

 converted into pork. It should also be remembered that the 

 land was enriched not only by the manure but by the peanut 

 vines, for the peanut is a soil- improving plant, drawing a part 

 of its nitrogen, like the cowpea, from the air. The nuts on a 

 part of the patch were dug, and the yield was at the rate of 

 1,565 lbs. (62.6 bushels) of dry nuts per acre. 



Thus we have as the total food required to produce 1 lb. 

 of gain 1.4 lbs. of peanuts and 1.9 lbs. of corn, or a total of 

 3..S lbs. of concentrated food and an indefinite amount of 

 leaflets. 



To put the matter in another way, one acre of peanuts, 

 supplemented by 2,117 lbs. of corn or 37.8 bushels, afforded 

 1,115 pounds of pork. 



This piece of poor sandy upland which gave a return of 

 over $18 per acre in peanut pork, would not have produced 

 with same fertilizers, over 200 pounds of lint cotton per acre 

 Avorth f 10 to $12. The expense of cultivating these peanuts 

 was much less than the cost of a similar area in cotton. 



PEANUT PASTURAGE VS. CORNMEAL. 



On another field of fertility about equal to the preceding, 

 Spanish peanuts were planted June 24, following wheat, 

 which had been harvested about a month before. An excep- 

 tionally dry summer was the cause of a very poor stand. The 

 plants on a number of rows were counted, and instead of the 

 usual average of one plant for every 18 or 20 inches of drill, 

 the average distance between plants was nearly four feet. 



In this field another experiment was made in pasturing 

 psanuts. Nine Essex pigs, of similar breeding, and from two 

 litters differing in age by only three days, were used. They 

 had been recently weaned and were decidedly inferior in feed- 

 ing qualities to the Poland Chinas used in the preceding ex- 



