SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



some five hundred million pounds yearly is made into 

 shortening where its unstable flavor and higher costs 

 of hardening by the hydrogenation process are offset 

 by ease and cheapness of bleaching, the fine white 

 color of the finished product, and acceptance by the 

 public. All these comparative merits and demerits are 

 summed up in price, soybean selling regularly in a 

 free market about three cents cheaper than linseed 

 and a cent below cottonseed. 



Except in wartime and to meet some critical war 

 necessity, only a demented price fixer would dare to 

 violate the established price ratios between such closely 

 competitive commodities as the edible oils. The ceiling 

 prices of cottonseed and soybean have been respec- 

 tively 2.2 and 2.5 times the prewar average, but the 

 War Production Board price on peanuts is a three-times 

 raise above old levels. Peanuts are admittedly in a 

 class by themselves. The oil is the highest priced of the 

 group, and unlike soybean and cottonseed, it is not a 

 principal product, but more or less a sideline. 



For twenty years the peanut crop has been growing 

 steadily. Since 1940 it has jumped far beyond a com- 

 paratively restricted area in eastern Virginia and the 

 Carolinas to Georgia and Alabama and way out to 

 Texas. The acreage in Georgia, for example, has trebled, 

 planted largely to the small, tight-skinned Spanish type 

 favored by the oil crushers and which most of the new 

 farmers in Texas have cultivated. Big Virginia runners, 



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