MARKETING PEANUTS 55 
Some coffee roasters get good results by having a special sale of 
roasted peanuts one day a week at reduced prices. 
In some large cities commercial peanut roasting is concentrated 
in the hands of a very few firms. In others practically all of the 
large wholesalers do their own roasting. The charge for roasting 
varies tremendously, from 50 cents to $1.25 per bag of about 100 
pounds, and occasionally even higher. The usual charge in a large 
city may be expected to be between 75 cents and $1.10 per bag. 
This includes calling for and delivering the peanuts, if desired. 
There is a considerable demand on the part of street venders and 
small storekeepers for roasted peanuts in small bags. Paper bags 
holding 5 or 10 pounds of roasted peanuts have an especially large 
sale in some cities; other dealers put roasted stock out in bags con- 
taining 20 to 50 pounds. 
A machine which has recently attained considerable popularity 
roasts the peanuts in a small cylinder operated by electricity and 
heated either by electricity or by gas, and often sold as an adjunct 
to a pop-corn stand. This small cylinder will roast the peanuts in 
about an hour, and the peanuts are kept hot in the compartment 
with the pop corn. 
Several experiments with a view to preparing roasted salted pea- 
nuts in the shell have been made, and the finished products have been 
placed on the market in a limited way. 
PEANUT PRODUCTS 
For many years peanuts reached the consuming public only in 
the form of roasted nuts in the shell. The introduction, over 20 
years ago, of the penny vending machine for the sale of salted shelled 
Spanish peanuts, gave an impetus to the salting industry. Peanut 
candies of various kinds and peanut butter have also greatly in- 
creased in popularity, until shipments of shelled raw peanuts from 
the South during the past few seasons have been twice those of 
cleaned peanuts in the shell. 
If to the raw shelled domestic peanuts used outside the peanut 
belt are added the shelled stocks used by peanut-products manufac- 
turers in the South, and imported shelled peanuts, and if all are 
reduced to unshelled equivalents, it is probable that the total weight 
of the peanuts used in the shelled form in the country would be 
found to be between four and five times the weight of the peanuts, 
domestic and imported, consumed in the shell. 
SALTED PEANUTS 
Perhaps more peanuts pass into consumption as salted peanuts 
than in any other way. Enormous quantities of domestic Spanish 
and Virginias are salted, and salting interests have been among the 
heaviest buyers of imported peanuts from China. 
Spanish peanuts are customarily salted without removing the thin 
brown skins. First the nuts are gone over to remove foreign ma- 
terial. Usually they pass along an endless belt, enabling workers 
on either side to detect undesirable substances. In numerous fac- 
tories, a stoner, employing suction, is also used to remove the 
stones or other heavy foreign matter from the peanuts. The nuts 
are then boiled in oil, in a vat or peanut cooker containing a woven 
