The vines remain in stack from three to five weeks, after which the nuts are picked off, placed in sacks, and shipped to market. A vine under favorable conditions bears more than a hundred nuts, and the yield per acre averages forty bushels.

Most of the Virginia and North Carolina crop, which is about two thirds of the whole crop of the country, is marketed in Norfolk and Petersburg, Virginia. In each of these cities are factories where the nuts are bought as they are delivered by the farmer. The nuts as they appear at this stage, with earth and their stems still clinging to them, are hardly to be recognized as the bright nuts we afterwards see on the corner stand.

To polish them and to remove the earth and stems, the nuts are scoured in large iron cylinders, from which they pass through blast fans, in which a strong current of air separates the fully developed nuts having sound kernels from those imperfectly filled, and from empty pods.

The sound nuts fall through the fan upon long picking tables, where those which are discolored are taken out, and the bright ones are passed on into sacks which will each hold about one hundred pounds of nuts. Each sack is marked with the brand which indicates the grade of its contents.

The dark and partially filled nuts are shelled and the kernels are used by confectioners in making peanut candy. The work of picking over and separating the nuts is

performed by little girls, about twenty of whom are employed at every table.

Three varieties of peanuts are grown in America, — the white, the red, and the Spanish. The white, which is the most important variety, has two kernels with pink skins; its vine spreads along the ground, unlike that of the red variety, which grows more upright and in a bunch.

The pod of the red nut holds three and sometimes four kernels, and has a deep red skin. The Spanish is a much smaller nut, with a lighter skin and milder flavor than either of the others. The entire crop is shelled, and used especially in that rich confection known as nougat.

The history of the competition between the home product and the imported peanut is interesting, and gives one some idea of the importance of the peanut trade. In 1872, and for several years previous, there were annually imported into New York half a million bushels of peanuts, the greater part of which came from Africa, and the rest from Spain.

The American farmers gradually awakened to a perception of the profits to be made by raising the nuts. Melon patches were turned into peanut fields, and in 1878 the seed of the Spanish nut was planted in Virginia. The product was found to equal that of the foreign nut, and as it costs two or three cents a pound less to market the crop, it was not long before the imported nut was driven from the market. At present Virginia, North

Carolina, and Tennessee count goober raising as one of their chief industries. The peanut is a more useful product than people in general think it to be. We all know how eagerly it is sought after to help boys enjoy a baseball match or a circus; but its use in the roasted form by no means measures the extent of its value or the variety of the uses to which it is put.

The nuts contain from forty-two to fifty per cent of a nearly colorless, bland, fixed oil, which resembles olive oil and is used for similar purposes. This oil is principally employed in the manufacture of the finer grades of soap.

In 1883 Virginia began to manufacture peanut flour, which makes a peculiarly palatable biscuit; and North Carolina has long made pastry of pounded peanuts. It is also eaten for dessert, and it is roasted as a substitute for coffee.

The peanut is very nutritious. The negroes use it in very many places in making porridge or custard, and prepare from it a beverage. The vine forms a fodder as good as clover hay, and hogs fatten on what they find on the fields after the crop has been gathered.

GEORGE B. SPEAR in Youth's Companion Series

By permission of Ginn & Company

averages
nutritious

beverage
nougat

palatable

substitute

YUSSOUF

A stranger came one night to Yussouf's tent,
Saying, “Behold one outcast and in dread,
Against whose life the bow of power is bent,
Who flies, and hath not where to lay his head;
I come to thee for shelter and for food,

To Yussouf, called through all our tribes 'The Good.""

"This tent is mine," said Yussouf, "but no more
Than it is God's; come in, and be at peace;

Freely shalt thou partake of all my store
As I of His who buildeth over these
Our tents His glorious roof of night and day,
And at whose door none ever yet heard 'Nay.'

So Yussouf entertained his guest that night,
And, waking him ere day, said, "Here is gold;
My swiftest horse is saddled for thy flight;
Depart before the prying day grow bold."
As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.

999

That inward light the stranger's face made grand,
Which shines from all self-conquest; kneeling low,
He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf's hand,
Sobbing, "O Sheik, I cannot leave thee so;

I will repay thee; all this thou hast done
Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son!"

"Take thrice the gold," said Yussouf, "for with thee Into the desert, never to return,

My one black thought shall ride away from me;
First-born, for whom by day and night I yearn,
Balanced and just are all of God's decrees;
Thou art avenged, my first-born, sleep in peace!"
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

CONTENTMENT

Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content;
The quiet mind is richer than a crown;
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent ;
The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown:
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss,
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss.

The homely house that harbors quiet rest;
The cottage that affords no pride nor care;
The mean that agrees with country music best;
The sweet consort of mirth and music's fare;
Obscured life sets down a type of bliss:

A mind content both crown and kingdom is.

ROBERT GREENE