300 
Parry’s JAPAN Giant.—Large leaves, vigorous, upright grower. 
Nut very large, smooth, dark coloured; one or two nuts only in a 
burr; the sear covers nearly half the shell. 
EartH Nut, Arachis hypogea. 
These annual leguminous plants thrive to great perfection in 
Western Australia. In Spain, Algeria, South America, and India 
they constitute an important industry. The nuts are graded, sacked, 
and sold in large quantities for eating, while an enormous amount 
is crushed in mills, where the oil—of which the nut contains over 
40 per cent.—is extracted, and the residue compressed and sold for 
feeding stock. 
The oil, which is largely used for lighting and for soap making, 
is imported into Australia in large quantities. 
The nuts are brought by the shipload from the Levant and from 
India and treated in the large olive oil mills around Marseilles. 
The nuts are first crushed and cold pressed, yielding an almost 
colourless oil, of pleasant taste and smell, which is used as an adul- 
terant of salad oil. It is easily extracted, does not readily turn 
rancid and is palatable. The paste is then sprinkled with water and 
pressed again, cold, the oil being used mostly for lighting. The 
third oil is next extracted from the steamed paste, and is in great 
demand for soap making, while the residual cake constitutes ex- 
cellent food for stock, being palatable, rich in protein and in starchy 
and sugary matters, apart from the unextracted percentage of oil 
remaining in the residue. 
The climate best suited for the cultivation of earth nuts is one 
free from frost for about five months. The soil should be free and 
light and deeply ploughed to permit the easy penetration of the 
flowering organs, which curve downwards into the ground, where 
they enlarge and ripen. A gravelly loam with a retentive clay sub- 
soil suits it well. Lime or marl, if not naturally present, must be 
added either with the fertilisers used or independently; without 
lime the nuts will not develop properly, a large proportion being 
empty shells, called “pops.” 
Several kinds of earth nuts are grown—notably a white and a 
red one. They present somewhat the appearance of a large kind of 
clover. The white nut has a more spreading habit of growth than 
the red, is said to be more prolifie, and is later in coming to maturity ; 
the red is earlier, and yields fewer imperfect pods or “pops.” The 
colour of the skin of the kernel differentiates these two varieties. 
The land is prepared by deep ploughing, and the distance be- 
tween the rows generally set two to three feet apart, and planted two 
inches deep in ridges, with furrows between if irrigated and on the 
flat if planted on moist land. When irrigated, water is run along 
these furrows and the soil is cultivated after each watering until the 
