IOO THE BOOK OF USEFUL PLANTS 



doubt much "pure Lucca oil" we buy, and pay 

 very high prices for, is made chiefly of peanuts and 

 other things not so good. The sooner we are 

 willing to take our honest products, the oil of 

 cottonseed and peanut, on their own merits, the 

 less we will have to pay for these foodstuffs. 

 Then we shall cease to pay tribute to pirates who 

 call by the name, olive oil, a table oil that is not 

 genuine, but adulterated. It is time we laughed 

 at them: so long have they laughed at our boast 

 that we will have nothing but the genuine article, 

 and that we are able to detect the first attempt 

 to cheat us by substitutions. 



Let us take a long look backward to see how it 

 came about that the peanut is the principal nut 

 used in America to-day. We do not have so 

 long a way to go to find a day when people out- 

 side of a small section of Virginia knew nothing 

 about the "goober pea," so well liked by the 

 people around Norfolk, where the light, sandy 

 soil was commonly planted to this crop. In the 

 early sixties, when the northern armies were in 

 Virginia, the boys in blue from many sections of 

 the country fell in love with the nuts that were a 

 food as well as a kind of dainty, and lent pleasant 

 variety to the hard fare of the soldier life. They 

 could keep a supply on hand, and even on the 



