432 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



peanuts. The price for picking is from 30 to 35c per grain sack holding from 40 

 to 45 pounds. The nuts are cleaned in revolving drums, and followed with a 

 grain fanning mill which blows out the light ones. 



Concerning the peanut situation in California in 1914, Mr. C. E. 

 Utt of Santa Ana, who has been the largest grower in the State for 

 many years, gives the following specific statement.* 



My experience in growing peanuts in this State covers a period of many years. 

 The last two years I was in the business I planted 400 acres each year. They 

 netted me a tidy little loss, wiping out all the profits I had ever made growing 

 peanuts, for occasionally the crop has proven profitable. 



A few peanuts have been grown in California in a great many localities for 

 perhaps fifty years, and most of the attempts to produce them have proven un- 

 profitable and been abandoned. At one time Orange County produced something 

 like twenty carloads annually, now not more than one carload a year, and it is 

 perfectly safe to say that peanuts will never be grown in the Pacific States to 

 any appreciable extent, because the cost of production is so much higher here 

 than in Japan. At one time the Pacific Coast market was supplied by peanuts 

 from Virginia. About twenty years since the Japanese began importing and now 

 sell over 95 per cent of the unshelled peanuts used west of the Rocky Mountains. 

 Virginia still supplying the bulk of the shelled Spanish nuts. The price at which 

 Japanese nuts are laid down on the wharf at San Francisco, tariff paid, ranges 

 from three cents to four and one-half cents per pound. The cost of producing 

 peanuts at any of the Pacific States will range from three cents up, probably 

 averaging now about six cents. The price of labor in Asia will probably always 

 enable them to undersell us in the market. 



Mr. Utt gives the following cultural hints : Peanuts require sandy 

 sediment to give the best results. It is better to shell the seed and plant 

 one kernel in a hill, 18 inches apart in the rows which are three feet 

 apart. Plant the seed two or three inches deep, in good moist earth so 

 as to insure germination. Plant as soon as frosts are over, in April or 

 May, as they need about six months to complete their growth. There is 

 very little land that will produce crops without irrigation. If irrigation 

 is necessary, it must be by the furrow method, and no flooding must be 

 permitted. 



THE PECAN 



The pecan, by rapid growth, early fruiting, and general thrift, 

 seems to be the member of the hickory family best fitted for California 

 conditions. A tree grown from a nut planted by J. R. Wolfskill, on 

 Putah Creek, in 1878, was, when twenty-five years old, over fifty feet 

 high, with a trunk twelve inches in diameter, growing luxuriantly and 

 bearing freely. Still older trees, also very satisfactory in growth and 

 bearing, are to be seen at Chico and Visalia. The pecan, though grown 

 for thirty years by different parties around the Bay of San Francisco, 

 either does not bear or keeps the nuts hanging on until sometimes they 

 sprout on the tree. The wider extremes in temperature or in humidity 

 in the interior seem to teach the tree better habits of growth and rest, 

 and moist lowlands in the great valleys seem best for pecan planting. 

 As yet, California has no marketable product of pecans but the total 

 number of trees in the State is insignificant. 



Pecan trees grow readily from the nuts if these are fresh. Plant- 

 ers should secure nuts of selected varieties (for there is a great differ- 



*Rural Californian, March, 1914. 



