THE PEANUT.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXXI, Issue 50, 27 June 1905, Page 2

THE PEANUT.

There is much doubt as to the original j Lome ox the peanut. Some say that it is indigenous to Africa; others, that it was a native of South America and was carried by the earlier explorers of that country to Spain, | and thence to Africa. The ear.iest authentic t tradition tells of its appearance in eastern i North Carolina, probably brought there by I pome of the slave ships landing cargoes along j -the coast. The native Africans recognised | and used them. - ' i Peanuts grow upon a trailing vine with | leaves much resembling a small four leaved I clover. The small yellow flower it bears fs . shaped like Hie blossom of all the pea family. Indeed , the Agricultural Bureau in Washing ton docs not recognise the, peanut as a nut at all, but classes it among beans. The soil. in , which it is cultivated must, be light and J sandy. After the flower falls away the flower I stalk elongates and becomes rigid, curving in such a way as to push the forming pod well below the surface of the earth. If by any accident this is not done, the nut never matures.