Volume XIII
Number 32
THE STATE
A Weekly Survey of North Carolina
January 5
1946
Entered a* recond-elau matter. June 1. 1933. at the Portofflce at Ralclfh. North Carolina, under the Act of March 3. 1379.
Ascendancy of the Peanut
become a staple food with Ameri¬
cans, not only at ball games and
in the peanut jar. but also as a
base for everything from sub¬
stitute butter to woolen suits. In
fact, that brilliant Negro, George
Washington Carver, found over
two hundred practical uses for the
goober, and others await only the
research and planning which is the
intention of science and industry
in the world after the war.
Like cotton and tobacco, the pea¬
nut is a 150-day crop, its culture,
reaping, curing, and marketing
extending from the early spring,
throughout the summer, and up to
Christmas before the 4-bushel bags
become cash in farm (rackets. But
unlike the other two, there are
spells of rest in between. For if
early cultivation is done carefully,
there is a month in late summer
when the plant is better oft left
alone, and the curing season in
October is six weeks long, during
which time the vines, with goobers
attached, are piled neatly in the
Helds drying and absorbing the
rays of the sun which add much to
their nutritive value.
About 75 per cent of the crop
will go directly to peanut eaters
Mo loii|ftkr is (hero justification for
referring to it as the “lowly
ground pea.** It has blossomed out
into a S2:*.000.000 crop for Morth
Carolina farmers.
tty E. CARL SINK
First step in harvesting the goober nut is to plow up the vines in late
summer. This operation shakes off the larger, riper nuts, but these
later are harvested by pigs. (All photos by Hcmmer.)
BECAUSE the Yank and
Johnny Reb alike got hungry
enough during the Civil War
to root with the hogs for food,
farmers in North Carolina are
reaping an annual cash harvest of
around $23,000,000.
The lowly goober pea. ground-
pea, or whatever you call it. has
ascended the social scale to be¬
come the almighty Peanut, and up
the fiscal scale to rate as a lead¬
ing Southern cash crop, trailing to¬
bacco and cotton by a margin
which is narrowing each year. And
the State is second in producing
this groundpea which is not a
tuber, and neither does it grow
on the roots of the vine.
From Africa, according to some
researchers, and from Brazil, ac¬
cording to others, the peanut has
Farm folks, white, black, young and old, take to the Held to stack the
peanut vines (with goobers attached) around a stake. The vines are
left there until the nuts are thoroughly cured (dried out).
THE STATE. January 3 1946
3
