54 BULLETIN 1401, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 
Telegrams are received from bureau representatives in Seattle 
and San Francisco, recording market prices and conditions of Asiatic 
goods f. o. b. the Pacific coast, and the importations of oriental 
peanuts and peanut oil at those points when any take place. Imports 
at New York, Boston, and Norfolk are also obtained and published. 
Detailed import and export figures for peanuts, peanut oil, and 
cottonseed oil, covering all ports, are obtained from the Bureau of 
Foreign and Domestic Commerce and published each month. Com- 
plete summaries of import and export statistics are issued at the 
close of each calendar and fiscal year. Occasionally articles dealing 
with the peanut industry in other countries, as reported by American 
consular agents, are included. These weekly market reports are 
mailed without expense to anyone showing need for them, upon ap- 
plication to the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Washington, D. C. 
CROP PRODUCTION STATISTICS 
Through a system of voluntary crop reporters, supervised by 
State or district statisticians, a record of the estimatea production 
of peanuts is obtained from the entire peanut belt. These figures, 
revised monthly during the later growing and harvesting seasons, 
are of interest to everyone in the industry as the best available 
estimate of the quantity of peanuts produced in the United States. 
ROASTED PEANUTS IN THE SHELL 
Peanuts in the shell are sold to the public in roasted form. If the 
peanuts are to have a uniformly- brown color they must be turned 
occasionally during the roasting process, and this is usually done in 
perforated revolving cylinders over heat of some kind. Gas is 
usually employed for the roasting, two or three lines of flame running 
the length of the cylinder underneath. Coal is sometimes used, and 
occasionally electricity is used with small roasters. The number of 
revolutions of the cylinder varies from 6 or 7 to the minute in a small 
cylinder holding 10 pounds of pods to 40 or 50 a minute in larger 
outfits holding from 60 to 200 pounds. 
The length of time required for roasting peanuts varies with the 
degree of heat, moisture content of the pods, size of the cylinder and 
quantity roasted. With small roasters and only moderate heat, an 
horn- is often necessary, but with large cylinders and a higher temper- 
ature the roasting may be accomplished in 15 to 20 minutes. Scorch- 
ing is likely to result if the roasting is hurried too much. 
In commercial practice a thermometer is never used. The exact 
time required for roasting is left to the judgment of the operator of 
the machine. When the kernels have reached a golden-brown color, 
the pods are poured out for cooling onto a truck with a perforated 
bottom, and then are rebagged. The shrinkage in weight of peanuts 
in the shell during roasting may run from 7 to 10 per cent. 
The machinery for roasting peanuts on a large scale is similar to 
that used for roasting coffee. In fact, coffee roasters are using their 
equipment increasingly for roasting peanuts as a sideline. Some 
coffee roasters make a practice of keeping 1, 2, and 5 poimd bags of 
roasted peanuts constantly on their counters, as well as smaller 
sacks, to attract the attention of people coming in to buy coffee. 
