MARKETING PEAXUTS 23 
THE HUMPHREYS COUNTY PEANUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION 
In the fall of 1923 about 140 peanut growers in Humphreys County, 
Tenn., organized to warehouse and sell their peanuts cooperatively. 
Each carload was considered a pool by itself, and each grower who 
contributed to it received the same price per grade. The overhead 
was taken care of by a deduction of 10 cents per bag. At the close of 
the season all funds in the treasury were prorated according to the 
number of bags sold through the association. In 1924 the member- 
ship had increased to 300, and the association handled about 50,000 
bags of peanuts, bringing the growers between $175,000 and $200,000 
in a little over three months. 
Improved seed selection, definite standards of grading for farmers' 
goods, keeping the trash on the farm, improved warehousing facili- 
ties, ample financial assistance for members, more orderly flow of 
the crop to market, are a few of the ends which cooperative activity 
can be made to serve. 
Whether operating as a cooperative association, or merely acting 
by mutual agreement, peanut producers shoidd obtain a premium 
for their peanuts if a large number of growers in a community raise 
their standards at the same time. A peanut factory can not be 
expected, as a general principle, however, to pay higher prices for well- 
graded peanuts if they represent but a small part of the total quantity 
handled. Expenses of operation in the plant are not reduced by 
cleaning one or-two small lots of good quality nuts. But if the factory 
can buy enough bright, clean, carefully graded farmers' goods to 
enable it to handle them exclusively for several days, its expenses of 
operation can be lessened, and a premium can be paid for the better 
product. 
SECONDARY DISTRIBUTION 
OPERATION OF CLEANING AND SHELLING PLANTS 
As the Virginia- type peanuts come from the farm, they are of 
various sizes, often partly covered with dirt, and with more or less 
sticks, stones, and other foreign material in the bags. The machinery 
devised to remove the foreign matter and prepare the peanuts for the 
market is seldom exactly alike in any two establishments, partly 
owing to the secrecy which surrounds operations in most peanut 
plants. A mill may have machines in operation which have not been 
fully patented, and to prevent the details of such machinery coming 
to the attention of competitors, visitors are seldom admitted. In 
the better type of factory, much of the machinery is inclosed so far 
as possible to prevent excess dust, but most mills at present do not 
have these dust-eliminating features. The following description of 
the shelling and cleaning methods practiced in modern factories in the 
Virginia-North Carolina territory, written from the observation of 
representatives of the United States Department of Agriculture, 
with the assistance of leading Virginia cleaners, shows in a general 
way how the processes may be accomplished. 
CLEANING PROCESSES 
Peanuts as received from the farm are generally sacked in 4-bushel 
bags. Most cleaners prefer to store the farmers' goods in sacks 
in warehouses or in spaces not occupied by machinery on the floors 
of their plants; but a few cleaners have erected large elevators, with 
