PEANUTS How They Grow

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21386, 31 January 1935, Page 5 (Supplement)

PEANUTS How They Grow

Peanuts in toffee, peanuts in biscuits and peanuts roasted are very familiar to boys and girls, but the interesting way in which peanuts grow and their value as an export in many countries are facts little known to the average person who crunches peanut toffee with savour. The peanut or hypogoea is a small leguminous or pod-bearing shrub, native of Brazil but grown in most hot countries now. It is not strictly speaking a nut but a seed or fruit of the plant. It grows extensively in the Southern States of America; in West Africa the cultivation of these nuts is one of the most important occupations of the people. In Gambia, a British protectorate in West Africa, nearly one million pounds of peanuts are exported in good seasons. A valuable oil is pressed from peanuts which is very much like olive oil. It is of good quality and is often used instead of olive oil for packing sardines and various other food preparations. After the plant has flowered, the ovaries or seed pods begin to form, and the stalk bends, so that the pods are thrust into the soil below, and they grow two or three inches

Common Peanut (Arachis hypogoea): a,a, flowers; b,b, ovaries on lengthened stipes; c,c, forming fruit; d, ripe pod; e, pod opened showing seeds. under the ground where the seed matures. Of course care must be taken that the soil around the plant is loose. Sandy soil produces the best nuts, for the pods have no difficulty in pushing their way into the sand where they swell and ripen. When the pod matures it is crinkled and contains two nuts of a cream colour covered with a thin tan-coloured skin which crackles off when the nuts are roasted. After the harvest, the pods are packed in huge heaps, where they await the arrival of cargo ships to carry them to all parts of the world. Peanut plants grow to a height of one or two feet, and besides providing food of high nourishment to man and cattle they, mald| rich manure., iivfrhen ploughed into the ground, ;as do most legumes or podbearipg plants:.