PEALE 



4540 



PEANUT 



"THAT ROYAL BIRD, WHOSE TAIL'S A DIADEM" 



in the fifth century B.C., and Pliny speaks of 

 it as common in his day in Rome, where it was 

 considered a great delicacy as a roast served 

 in its own feathers. See PHEASANT. 



PEALE, peel, the family name of two paint- 

 ers, father and son, who achieved distinction. 



Charles Wilson Peale (1741-1827), an Ameri- 

 can painter, famed for his series of portraits of 

 Revolutionary soldiers and statesmen. Of his 

 fourteen portraits of Washington, the best- 

 known was painted by order of Lafayette for 

 the king of France. During the French Revolu- 

 tion it was presented to the National Gallery 

 at Washington, D. C., where it may now be seen. 

 Another is on exhibition in the New York Met- 

 ropolitan Museum. Many of Peale's portraits 

 also adorn Independence Hall, Philadelphia. 

 Among other noteworthy paintings are the por- 

 traits of Nathanael Greene, Count de Rocham- 

 beau, Horatio Gates and Baron de Kalb; Christ 

 Healing the Sick, completed just before his 

 death, is one of his few works upon subjects 

 other than portraits. 



Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860), a son of 

 Charles Wilson Peale, was an American artist 

 who gained renown as a portrait and historical 

 painter. At the age of seventeen he began a 

 portrait of Washington, from life, and one of 

 the copies of this, executed in 1823, was pur- 

 chased by the United States government for the 

 National Capitol. Peale excelled as a draughts- 



man, but was less successful as a colorist, in 

 this respect being inferior to his father. He 

 was one of the original members of the Academy 

 of Design, New York City, and for a number 

 of years was president of the American Acad- 

 emy of Fine Arts. His fame rests chiefly on his 

 portraits of noted men of his day. In addition 

 to these, other well-known paintings are The 

 Roman Daughter, The Court of Death and 

 The Ascent of Elijah. 



PEANUT, pe'nut, an annual plant of the pea 

 family, which grows like a potato vine, and pro- 

 duces, underground, a nutlike pod, the familiar 

 peanut of our markets. This plant, which is 

 probably native to Brazil, is cultivated in warm 

 regions the world over; in the southern part of 

 the United States its culture is an industry of 

 rapidly increasing importance. Three main va- 

 rieties are cultivated in America the white, the 

 red and the Spanish. The white, which is the 

 most important, bears a pod containing two 

 kernels with pink skins; the pod of the red 

 holds three and sometimes four kernels, the 

 skins of which are deep red; Spanish peanuts 

 are smaller than these, and their kernels have 

 a milder flavor and a lighter skin than those of 

 the other varieties. 



Peanut Culture. Peanuts are planted in the 

 spring, . as soon as all danger from frost is 

 past. They require a limy soil, and thrive best 

 when the summer is hot and there is plenty of 



