PLANTS WHOSE SEEDS WE EAT 103 



sight. Unless they do this the nuts will not de- 

 velop and ripen. 



When the autumn comes, the plant is still 

 flowering, and the grower hates to pull up a plant 

 that has not finished bearing. But he does it. 

 The late flowers form small nuts at best, and it is 

 dangerous to take chances of an early frost that 

 will damage the vines and interfere with the cur- 

 ing of-the nuts. 



A furrow is plowed to throw the earth away 

 from the row on each side, and the plants are then 

 lifted with forks, and the dirt shaken off the 

 clustered nuts massed among the roots. Long 

 windrows of the loaded plants are gathered up by 

 gangs of harvesters, and shocked around poles set 

 firmly in the ground. The nuts are faced inward, 

 so that they are protected by the tops, and a cap 

 of grass roofs them from the rain. When dried 

 the nuts are picked by hand or threshed out by 

 machinery, cleaned of sand and rubbish, bleached, 

 if they are discolored, and sent to market. 



The chemist has told farmers some startling 

 things about the peanut. They are full of meaning 

 and interest to us all. It would pay to grow pea- 

 nuts even if we never harvested the nuts, because 

 the plant is one of those nitrogen-gatherers, which 

 absorbs that most valuable of all plant foods, 



