Ingredients
- six bushels of red peanuts can be picked offiu a day
Directions
The harvesting tnnst always take place before frost, for the nuts and haulm are both greatly injured, if not mined by frost. If the fall should be wet or the peanuts mature very early, many of the first formed nuts will be ruined by sprouting. Dry weather should alwajrs be selected for harvesting. It cannot be done when the ground is wet, for then the dirt will adhere to the nuts and ruin them, or at least greatly detract from their market value by turning them black.
The crop of white peanuts is harvested by rupning a furrow on each side of the row with a btill-tODgue plow or a pea digger, so as to dislocate the roots. Care must be taken not to detach the nuts from the vine 1899
in running the side furrow. After the plow has been run on each side of the row (and it is sometimes necessary to ran twice on a side), then lift the vines gently with the hand, carefully shaking the dirt off, and lay them on the ground. Let them remain in this way, if the stm is shining, from six to eight hours. The vines will wilt like clo- ver, when they may be brought together and stacked. The stacks are made around a pole planted in the ground and rising some eight feet above the snrfece. A plat- form made of old rails rests upon logs placed around the pole, and upon this the stack is built. The platform protects the nuts and vines from the mold and dampness of the ground. In stacking the nuts should be put on the inside next to the stack pole, but not so close as to prevent the air from circulating finely from the bot- tom to the top of the stack. To make the stack entirely secure it should have a cap- ping of hay or com fodder. Pot ttp in this manner the nuts will keep sectu^y all the winter should it be desired.
The red nuts are more easily harvested than the white, as they have but few roots, and the nuts adhere closely about the stem. In loose land they may be pulled up with- out mnning a furrow on each side of the row, though to do this will make the work much easier. There are but few red nuts now grown in Tennessee. An overproduc- tion of them for awhile reduced prices be-< low the cost of the labor in producing them.
Usually the nuts are allowed to stand in the stacks for about four weeks, and are then picked off by hand, the white always. Five or six bushels of red peanuts can be picked ofFiu a day. — Southern Magazine.. ■
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