Marketing peanuts 79 
had been converted on other bases. This compares with a domestic 
production during the 1919 season of 783,273,000 pounds. In addi- 
tion to the peanuts, 165,390,713 pounds of peanut oil were imported 
during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1920. This called for the 
crushing abroad of between three and four times as mairy peanuts as 
were actually shipped here, assuming that a ton of Virginia- type 
peanuts will crush out 500 pounds of peanut oil. Although imports 
have not since reached the high figures just given, they have been 
sufficiently ample so that the effect of foreign peanuts on the domestic 
peanut industry has continued to be of distinct importance. 
For a number of years China has produced the bulk of the peanuts 
imported into the United States, although many of the foreign peanuts 
appearing in our western markets in the shell are grown in Japan. 
The soil in which peanuts are grown in Japan often stains the pods, 
and to improve the external appearance and increase the market value 
of their goods, Japanese exporters not only wash the pods but bleach 
them. 
Chinese peanuts are grown in a soil containing little coloring 
matter. ' Neither washing nor bleaching is therefore necessary to 
make the peanuts salable, but Chinese peanuts in the shell do not 
possess the attractive appearance of the bleached Japanese nuts. 
They are known as ''naturals" on the Pacific coast. 
PRINCIPAL AREAS OF PRODUCTION IN CHINA 
The Province of Shantung, which has a soil particularly adapted 
to the growing of peanuts, is the leading peanut-producing region in 
China, and the Provinces of Honan and Chihli are said to rank next 
in importance. Some of the southern provinces also produce a con- 
siderable volume; in fact, the growing of peanuts is scattered over 
almost all of China. The peanuts grown in the Luanchou district, 
near the Luan River, are said to be superior in quality to any grown 
elsewhere in the Far East. The chief export towns in China are 
Tsingtau and Tientsin. 
As China maintains no census, exact statistics of production in 
that country can not be given. It has been estimated by the assist- 
ant trade commissioner at Shanghai, however, that about 900,000 tons 
(1,800,000,000 pounds) are produced in the entire country, of which 
about one-third is available for export. Both peanuts and peanut 
oil are said to be staple articles of diet among the Chinese, and over 
extensive areas practically every farmer raises peanuts on a small 
scale. 
HARVESTING AND GRADING METHODS IN CHINA 
The soil in which peanuts are planted in China is generally sandy, 
and the first step in harvesting is pulling up the vines by hand. 
Then the whole field is shoveled over and the dirt screened in a kind 
of rocking cradle screen to get out every pod remaining in the ground. 
This operation is shown in Figure 40. The vines are not cured, 
as in this country, but the pods are removed at once and shelled, 
usually by hand. 
The grading of peanuts in China is a hand-picking operation, or a 
combination of hand-screening and hand-picking. Small hand 
screens are suspended from the rafters of the picking house by a rope 
and are operated by coolies, who give the screens a shaking motion. 
