The proportion of large nuts in the crop varies greatly from one year to another. A study of the f. o. b. prices prevailing at the principal shipping points in Virginia and North Carolina shows that during the 1920-21 season a very wide price range prevailed between the extra large and the No. 1 Virginia shelled grades. During most of this period buyers were obliged to pay for the larger size nuts from two to three times the figure at which No. 1 stock could be bought. This wide spread in prices made it profitable for oriental shippers to sell large-size peanuts in American markets, notwithstanding the tariff of 3 cents per pound effective during the latter part of the season. The premium for large nuts in the shell was less marked, yet jumbos were generally listed at 150 to 175 per cent of the price for the fancy size. PRICES F.O.B. VIRGINIA-NORTH CAROLINA SHIPPING POINTS NOV. JAN. APR. 1920 JULY OCT. JAN. APR. JULY OCT. JAN. APR. JULY OCT. JAN. APR. JULY OCT. FIG. 6. A wide range between the prices of jumbos and fancys indicates a scarcity of the large. size nuts Many growers planted selected seed 10 the following spring. Owing partly to this and partly to weather conditions during the summer of 1921, the crop that year contained a much higher proportion of large pods than did that of 1920. As a result, the difference in price between jumbos and fancys, and between extra large and No. 1 shelled Virginias became very narrow, as shown in Figures 6 and 7. During the 1922-23 season the range in price between the grades again spread, as a result of a larger proportion of medium-size nuts in the 1922 crop. In the following season an increase in the proportion of large peanuts brought the selling price for the first and second size nuts, both shelled and unshelled, closer together again. FARMERS' COOPERATIVE ORGANIZATIONS Several attempts have been made to organize the peanut growers into cooperative groups for disposing of their crops. Few of these organizations have been successful. 10 The production and selection of seed is discussed in Farmers' Bulletin 1127, Peanut Growing for Profit, by W. R. Beattie. THE PEANUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION (VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA) The Peanut Growers Exchange, reorganized in 1921, and claiming to include in its membership of more than 5,000, enough growers to control more than 40 per cent of the total production in Virginia and North Carolina during the years 1920 and 1921, is the most ambitious effort to date in the Virginia-North Carolina section. About November 1, 1922, the exchange was reincorporated under the cooperative marketing act of Virginia, and its name was changed to "Peanut Growers' Association. The organization is now a nonprofit, nonstock association, similar to many other cooperative growers' associations established during recent years. Each member was originally obligated to sell and deliver to the association all peanuts produced by or for him in the States of Virginia and North Carolina for a period of seven years, re PRICES F.O.B. VIRGINIA - NORTH CAROLINA SHIPPING POINTS FIG. 7.-When large peanuts are scarce, the difference in price between shelled extra large and No. 1 Virginia-type peanuts is even more pronounced than between jumbos and fancys at the same time serving for himself only the right to peanuts for home or farm use. The members agreed further to pay the association 2 cents for each pound of their peanuts sold through any other agency than the association as liquidated damages. The peanuts of members are delivered when and where the association may direct. They are graded and pooled with the goods of like variety, grade, and quality delivered by other growers. Upon delivery, an advance payment is made of about one-half the current market price. Final payment is not made until the end of the season, when all goods have been sold and all settlements made. The net proceeds are then divided among the members in proportion to their individual deliveries. In 1921, the association stored for its members over 800,000 bags of farmers' goods. Late in the season it made arrangements with a Virginia cleaner to clean and shell part of its holdings, and entered the market as a competitor of the established Virginia-North Carolina mills. A considerable part of these stored 1921 peanuts was finally sold as farmers' goods late in the following year. For the 1922-23 season the association planned more extensive marketing operations, using different cleaning and shelling facilities and an increased administrative and selling force. One of its plans contemplated the selling of raw shelled Virginia peanuts in 1-pound lithographed cardboard cartons, two dozen packages to the case, to wholesale grocers and others for distribution to the consumer through the retail trade. The sale of these cartons was tried out chiefly in chain stores. A brand name and trade-mark were adopted and stamped on the bags and cartons of association peanuts. These were advertised and given some publicity by the association, but utilized a comparatively small portion of the crop. The larger portion of the 1922 crop was marketed in the summer and fall of 1923. Considerable dissatisfaction was expressed by many members because their net returns had not been equal to the return of nonmembers, and in October, 1923, the association authorized its members to market one-half their 1923 crop outside the association if they so desired, but asked that the members state definitely how much they would deliver to the association. The same policy was followed for the 1924 crop. During its early history, poor management and lack of experience in marketing peanuts proved severe handicaps to the association. Although organized to promote orderly marketing, it acted for several years chiefly as a "holding" company. Each season the growers' peanuts were held off the market in large measure until the close of the season in an effort to raise prices to a higher level, with the result that the period of active demand passed with many peanuts still unsold. Experienced marketing men are agreed that with semiperishables, such as peanuts, orderly marketing involves placing a part of the crop on sale at regular intervals, in accordance with the demand, and neither rushing it to market all at once at the beginning of the season, nor withholding it from sale until demand for it has largely lessened. THE GEORGIA PEANUT GROWERS COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION Early in 1923, some 6,000 peanut growers of Georgia united to form the Georgia Peanut Growers' Cooperative Association, having over 100,000 acres in peanut production. The "marketing agreement" signed by the members was based to a considerable extent on the contract of the older association in Virginia and North Carolina, but covered a period of five instead of seven years. Considerable effort was made during the year to induce the planting of good seed, proper cultural methods, and better harvesting, curing, and grading on the part of the members. It was felt that the presence of the Georgia association in the field raised the general average of prices received for farmers' goods in Georgia. In 1924 the number of members had reached more than 8,000, with an acreage of over 150,000. The peanuts produced by members were sold to shellers. The first advance to members in 1924 amounted to 60 per cent or more of the current price, with the remainder to be spread over three other payments. Early in 1925 the association arranged with established plants to handle the shelling of their peanuts, and began offering shelled goods for sale. THE HUMPHREYS COUNTY PEANUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION In the fall of 1923 about 140 peanut growers in Humphreys County, Tenn., organized to warehouse and sell their peanuts cooperatively. Each carload was considered a pool by itself, and each grower who contributed to it received the same price per grade. The overhead was taken care of by a deduction of 10 cents per bag. At the close of the season all funds in the treasury were prorated according to the number of bags sold through the association. In 1924 the membership had increased to 300, and the association handled about 50,000 bags of peanuts, bringing the growers between $175,000 and $200,000 in a little over three months. Improved seed selection, definite standards of grading for farmers' goods, keeping the trash on the farm, improved warehousing facilities, ample financial assistance for members, more orderly flow of the crop to market, are a few of the ends which cooperative activity can be made to serve. Whether operating as a cooperative association, or merely acting by mutual agreement, peanut producers should obtain a premium for their peanuts if a large number of growers in a community raise their standards at the same time. A peanut factory can not be expected, as a general principle, however, to pay higher prices for wellgraded peanuts if they represent but a small part of the total quantity handled. Expenses of operation in the plant are not reduced by cleaning one or two small lots of good quality nuts. But if the factory can buy enough bright, clean, carefully graded farmers' goods to enable it to handle them exclusively for several days, its expenses of operation can be lessened, and a premium can be paid for the better product. SECONDARY DISTRIBUTION OPERATION OF CLEANING AND SHELLING PLANTS As the Virginia-type peanuts come from the farm, they are of various sizes, often partly covered with dirt, and with more or less sticks, stones, and other foreign material in the bags. The machinery devised to remove the foreign matter and prepare the peanuts for the market is seldom exactly alike in any two establishments, partly owing to the secrecy which surrounds operations in most peanut plants. A mill may have machines in operation which have not been fully patented, and to prevent the details of such machinery coming to the attention of competitors, visitors are seldom admitted. In the better type of factory, much of the machinery is inclosed so far as possible to prevent excess dust, but most mills at present do not have these dust-eliminating features. The following description of the shelling and cleaning methods practiced in modern factories in the Virginia-North Carolina territory, written from the observation of representatives of the United States Department of Agriculture, with the assistance of leading Virginia cleaners, shows in a general way how the processes may be accomplished. CLEANING PROCESSES Peanuts as received from the farm are generally sacked in 4-bushel bags. Most cleaners prefer to store the farmers' goods in sacks in warehouses or in spaces not occupied by machinery on the floors of their plants; but a few cleaners have erected large elevators, with bins for different varieties and different grades of these varieties, in which peanuts are stored in bulk. Outlets under these bins allow the peanuts to drop onto a broad belt which conveys them to the factory, where they are raised by cup elevators to the top floor of the plant. If the peanuts are stored in the factory in sacks, they are elevated to the floor on which the large hoppers are located and there begin the rather complicated journey through the cleaning and shelling machinery. CLEANING OPERATIONS From the hopper the peanuts pass into a sand and dirt reel which has small openings to allow dirt to drop through. By rubbing against each other in the real, some of the soil in the little indentations in the hull of the peanuts is rubbed out and the pods acquire a slight polish. The reel also breaks off many stems. STEMMING OPERATIONS In some mills the next step is the stemming process, to remove little stems or roots which connected the pods to the vines and were not cut off when the plants went through the picking machinery. The principle somewhat resembles that involved in the ginning of cotton, and old cotton gins with dull teeth have at times been employed for stemming peanuts. Several types of stemmers are used. The preferred method employs a cylinder made by stringing iron pulleys on a shaft with a small space between each pulley. Below the cylinder are two or three rows of small saws so spaced on a shaft as to extend up into the spaces between the pulleys. These saws catch the stems of the peanuts and pull them off or cut them up so that a fan can remove them. FANNING OPERATIONS Fans and aspirators (fig. 8) are important machines in a cleaning plant, and are used all through the cleaning operations. The more fanning processes the peanuts go through, the less work is left to the laborers at the picking table later. A carefully regulated fan removes the light stems, chaff, empty pods and other non-edible material. This may be sold to near-by farmers for bedding or hog feed, and dairymen sometimes buy it for cattle feed. Light-weight pods, containing shriveled kernels, are later blown from the heavier-weight stock, because fancy or jumbo grades allow only small percentages of them. Some of these blown-out pods may be used in the extra or cheapest grade, or all may be shelled. SEPARATING OR GRADING OPERATIONS The grading or separating of peanuts in the shell into various sizes is usually done by a series of sloping, revolving cylinders made of metal bars fastened together. The spaces between these bars are adjusted to make the grades desired, as the peanuts are forced along the cylinders by gravity and the pressure of the other goods behind. The first operation is to take out the smallest of the nuts, which are either shelled or used in the extra grade. In the next step, the second size or fancy nuts fall through slightly wider slotted |