446 PEAS, BEANS, VETCHES, PEANUTS 



hand-picked, the Work mostly done by women and children at a cost 

 of from ten cents to twelve cents per bushel. Several machines 

 are now on the market for picking, the better types of which do very 

 satisfactory work. The greatest difficulty with machine-picking 

 heretofore has been due to the cracking more or less of the pods. 

 Cracking is especially serious when the peanuts are put in storage, 

 as there are several insects which work on the peas if the pods are 

 cracked. 



Preparation for Market. As the peas come from the machine 

 or hands of the pickers, they contain considerable dirt and are usually 

 covered with fine dust. They are usually cleaned by machinery, 

 which scours and polishes the pods more or less. The cleaning and 

 preparing for market is usually done at the warehouses and not by the 

 growers. The large type of peanuts are usually graded and given 

 special preparation to improve their appearance. 



Shelled peanuts are used very extensively, and these are usually 

 prepared also by special shelling machinery. The best grades of the 

 large peanuts are usually sold in the pods, but the smaller peas are 

 more commonly shelled. 



Uses of the Peanut. The peanut is gaining in importance as 

 a food plant. They are prepared, either by roasting, to be sold in 

 the pod, or after roasting they may be shelled, slightly salted, to be 

 sold as salted peanuts. Peanut butter is also an important com- 

 mercial product, and it is prepared by grinding the peanuts into 

 a fine emulsion. Peanut butter, which is almost fifty per cent oil, 

 has the advantage of retaining its quality without becoming rancid, 

 and is adapted to a variety of uses. 



Peanut oil is also manufactured very extensively, the crushed 

 peanuts yielding about thirty per cent oil. It can be used as salad 

 oil in place of olive oil, though it is not considered as good as the 

 best grade of olive oil. Large quantities of peanut oil are produced 

 in Marseilles, France, from peanuts largely imported from India 

 or north Africa. After the oil is extracted, the peanut cake makes 

 a valuable stock feed. 



Peanuts as a Stock Feed. It has long been the practice to turn 

 hogs into the peanut field after harvest to gather up the pods that 



