October 11, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



489 



the ground more. They bore the peanuts 

 rather loosely scattered, so that although they 

 were not exactly the running type of plant 

 one had to go over considerable ground to get 

 the crop. They continued blooming profusely 

 until frost and although the majority of pea- 

 nuts were ripe they were found in all stages 

 from the blossom to the fully ripened nuts. 

 Of the few plants raised and examined the 

 most prolific bore 26 nuts, the least fruitful 

 19, with an average of 21 per vine. 



The Spanish peanuts bore their nuts in 

 dense clusters all set close to the main stem, 

 so they were much more easily gathered. 

 Though they still continued to blossom at 

 frost, the great majority of the nuts had 

 ripened very solid and firm and a few had 

 actually germinated so that young plants were 

 breaking the soil when gathered. The most 

 prolific plant bore 82 nuts, the least fruitful is 

 somewhat doubtful as the plants had broken 

 up somewhat. A stalk, very likely a broken 

 branch, bore only 10 nuts, but the least pro- 

 lific entire plant bore 23 nuts, the average 

 number of nuts per plant being 53 per vine, 

 or considerably over twice the yield of the 

 Mammoth. 



The nuts of the Mammoth peanuts were 

 not so immense as some of the Burpee New 

 Mammoth Bush Peanut seen several years 

 ago, and the hulls were not so thick; however, 

 they were somewhat larger than the common 

 Virginia peanut of the markets. The follow- 



WEIGHTS, MEASUEEMENTS, ETC., OF 

 ' ' MAMMOTH ' ' PEANUTS 



ing figures give the result of weighing and 

 measuring a lot taken at random: 



It took 20 peanuts of this variety to weigh 

 50 grams ; of these 5 peanuts were wholly bad, 

 and the 20 nuts yielded 33 kernels, of which 8 

 were shrivelled, leaving 25 good kernels; the 

 33 kernels weighed 30.Y grams, or 61.4 per 

 cent, of the entire weight of the nuts. 



WEIGHTS, MEASUEEMENTS, ETC., OF 

 SPANISH PEANUTS 



It required 47 of these peanuts to weigh 50 

 grams. All the peanuts were good, and pro- 

 duced 91 kernels, of which only 1 was shriv- 

 elled. The weight of these kernels was 38.5 

 grams, or 77 per cent, of the entire weight of 

 nuts. 



Comparing plant by plant of the 2 varieties, 

 the average plant of the Mammoth peanut 

 yielded 21 peanuts, weighing just a trifle over 

 50 grams. Of these, about 5 would be unripe 

 or otherwise bad, and one would get 30 kernels 

 weighing about 30 grams. Of the Spanish 

 variety the average plant yielded 53 nuts 

 weighing about 56.4 grams, the whole amount- 

 ing to 102 kernels, weighing in the aggregate 

 43.1 grams. 



Comparing the net output then in kernels, 

 the Mammoth peanut yields 30 grams to 43.1 

 grams yielded by the Spanish peanut, or a 

 little over 68 per cent, as much. 



At the outset, it appears that the Spanish 

 peanut, which is so much more easily gathered 

 and yields so much more heavily, would be 

 the most desirable form to cultivate. On ac- 

 count of the more compact habit it could in- 



