OCR Text |
Show Climate Suitable For Peanut Culture. "A sandy loam, neither too dry nor too sandy, yet light and porous, por-ous, produces the most marketable peanuts, because it is nearer the natural color of the peanut shell, and the trado for which Americans peanuts are raised demands a light-colored light-colored shell, but equally sound and well-flavored nuts may be produced pro-duced on other soils. In fact, almost al-most any soil that can bo put in a friable condition and kept so will produce peanuts, provided it contains con-tains a sufficient quanitv of lime. Preparation of ihc land. Tliere is no mystery connected with the culture of the peanut crop or any special secret knowledge as to the preparation of the land. Any modes of preparations that will reduce re-duce the soil to a linely pulverized seed bed, light and friable to the depth of 4 or 5 inches, will be safe to adopt. Peanuts being planted usually after corn, it is necessary to remove from the soil the butts of the corn-stocks, together with all nf;or roots, clods, etc. The ordin :ny course followed by successful suc-cessful planters in various sections where peanuts are a prominent crop, is to break up the land with ordinary turn plow .as soon in the spring as the soil is in condition to be worked, and then use a harrow and roller or smoothing board in such a way as to leave a level sur-1 face and seed bed, such as is above described, all roots, stumps, stones, and clods having been carefully removed." re-moved." The time to plant is after danger of frost is over, as the plants are tender and easily killed. After the plants are up, all ; weeds, kc.f should be kept out, that the plant may have the full strength of the ground for the- maturing of tne nuts. "The nuts should be out of the ground before the first frost, as it is injurious both to the vines, when regarded as fodder, and to the kernels. ker-nels. It may be necessary to dig the crop some time before frost is feared, because early formed nuts when frost is long delayed begin to sprout, and the loss to the farmer farm-er from that cause would be greater than the gain from the maturing of the later nuts. Peanut farmers have a plow made especially for harvesting this crop. Following this plow laborers with pitchforks remove the plants from the ground, carefully shaking shak-ing off all loose soil, and piling then in windrows three rows in one. They are usually plowed in the morning, and then in the afternoon after-noon are stacked or shocked around poles 7 feet high, set in the ground at convenient places in the field. In shocking, care is taken to keep the vines from the ground, the usual practice being to lay a I couple of fence logs on each side of the center pole, and the plants are so arranged around the pole as to have the pods inside, and al- Iso to leave some space next to the pole for circulation of air. The shocks are usually capped with corn fodder or hay to keep out the rain. After being thus stacked from fifteen to twenty days the podsjare ready to bo picKed." |