TABLE 2. Steamship rates on peanuts January 1, 1925, except where otherwise

specified

In addition to these rates, wharfage and handling charges of varying amounts are often charged at the port of shipment.

1 Effective July 15, 1925.

2 Carload minimum weight, 30,000 pounds

"No carload minimum weight specified.

LEADING CENTERS OF PRODUCTION AND SHIPMENT

Peanuts are grown throughout all the Southern States but commercial production is chiefly confined to rather limited areas. Cleaning and shelling plants and crushing mills have sprung up where production was heavy, but often farmers' stock peanuts are purchased at a considerable distance from the factory and shipped to it in carload lots. Sometimes these shipments travel several hundreds of miles. The leading shipping States for shelled peanuts do not coincide with the leading States of production, as will be seen by a comparison of Tables 3 and 4:

TABLE 3.-Leading producing States for peanuts-average of 1920–1923 crops

1

State

North Carolina.

Als bama..

Georgia.

Virginia.

1 Compiled from Weekly Report-Peanuts, No. 292, Jan. 28, 1925, issued by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Mimeographed. Basis: Unshelled farmers' goods.

TABLE 4.-Leading shipping States for shelled and cleaned peanuts--average of 1920-21 to 1923-24 seasons

2

'Reduced to unshelled figures on arbitrary basis of 2 pounds shelled being equivalent to 3, pounds unshelled. Figures do not include shipments to points having shelling or crushing mills.

Figure 19 shows graphically the leading areas of production based on figures in the 1920 census. The sections of heaviest production centered around southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, and southwestern Georgia and southeastern Alabama.

These are also the States which ship cleaned and shelled peanuts most heavily, although not in the same proportions as they produce them. In addition, peanut plants are located in Texas, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee; but none are to be found at present in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, although all of these States produce peanuts. Tabulations of the movement of the 1920 to 1923 crops by States of shipment will be found in Table 11 on page 92.

An inexact picture of the relationship between production and shipments would be presented if no mention were made of the move

FIG. 19. The production of peanuts centers largely in southeastern Virginia, northeastern North Carolina, southwestern Georgia, and southeastern Alabama

ment of peanut oil. For the year 1920-21, in addition to shipments of about 2,000,000 pounds from Texas and Virginia, a total of nearly 19,000,000 pounds of crude peanut oil was shipped from the Southeast alone. Even more peanut oil moved the following season. For the past two or three years, the high price of shelled peanuts has been effective in confining crushing very largely to factory screenings, No. 3 shelled peanuts, and farmers' stock too poor in quality and condition to warrant shelling, although in 1925 many cars of lowgrade No. 2 peanuts were crushed.

Peanut shipments from the Southeast move chiefly from points in Georgia; southeastern peanut oil, on the contrary, is largely shipped from mills in Alabama towns. Tabulations of the shipments of domestic crude peanut oil from October 25, 1920, to October 26, 1924, by States of origin and destination, appear in Table 14 on page 97.

HOW PEANUTS REACH THE CONSUMER

PEANUTS IN THE SHELL

Not many years ago the only way the public came in contact with peanuts was in the shell, and the word "peanut was associated almost exclusively in most minds with the street vender who had a small, whistling peanut stand, heated by gas or charcoal, where the raw peanuts were roasted slowly and irregularly. Now the small, whistling stand is becoming gradually less conspicuous, and is used more as a place to keep peanuts warm than for roasting, Street venders (fig. 20) or retail grocers, who sell peanuts in 5 and 10 cent bags, now usually buy them of the jobbers or wholesale grocers already roasted. A more uniform degree of brownness and an improved flavor are assured by the use of large-scale roasters.

FIG. 20.-Street vender selling roasted peanuts. Often, as in this case, peanuts have to meet competition from pop corn, candy, and raisins

Venders at circuses, fairs, ball games, and summer resorts, as well as street venders and grocers still sell large quantities of roasted peanuts. Dealers look forward hopefully to the opening of the summer season," which usually occurs in early spring, as an opportunity for increasing their sales. The litter caused by purchasers throwing around peanut shells, however, has been so undesirable that many cities, some parks, and other places of amusement, have prohibited the sale of peanuts in the shell, and for several years interest in cleaned peanuts among the trade grew constantly less. This tendency was encouraged by the high prices charged by venders, many of whom have not appreciably increased the number of peanuts they sell for 5 cents since the war, although wholesale prices have fluctuated greatly since then and have at times fallen to one-third the war prices. During the past two or three years, sales of peanuts

in the shell have again increased, indicating that both shippers and receivers are actively endeavoring to push the sale of this type of goods.

SHELLED PEANUTS

Shelled peanuts reach the public through a wide variety of channels. The introduction of peanut butter and penny vending machines for salted peanuts some 20 years ago, provided new outlets for peanuts, which have steadily been expanded. Candy manufacturers have found that shelled peanuts can be combined with chocolate and sugar in a wide variety of forms, and new kinds of candy in which the peanut is a principal ingredient are constantly placed on the market. These important uses for peanuts are discussed in more detail later. In addition to salters, candy manufacturers and peanut butter concerns, wholesale grocers, large bakers, large retailers, and chain stores buy shelled peanuts heavily, through jobbers, brokers, or direct from the South.

PEANUT OIL

Indirectly, manufacturers of shortening, oleomargarine, nut margarine, salad oil, and soap, and other users of vegetable oils have during some years used large quantities of peanuts in the form of peanut oil.

PEANUT-FED HAMS

Even more indirectly, people consume thousands of tons of peanuts in the form of pork. Large areas of peanuts are raised especially for hogging-off, and during years of low prices or poor quality the hogs are fed very large quantities of peanuts which would otherwise have been shelled. Peanut-fed hams" from several sections have obtained a considerable reputation.

SPECIAL METHODS OF DISTRIBUTION

There is perhaps no important article of food of such high food value as the peanut, of which so little is known by the general public. Little attempt has been made to advertise the peanut, or to bring it directly to the attention of the housewife. Many leaders in the peanut industry feel that if the industry is to expand, a campaign of education is essential, and that housewives must be told how easily raw peanuts can be prepared for use, and in how many foods and confections they can be employed.20

Marketing by parcel post has been tried out in a small way by shippers of Virginia-type peanuts. A circular giving various recipes was often inclosed with the individual lots of peanuts, which usually ranged from 1 to 5 pounds in weight. The success of parcel-post marketing lies in "repeat" orders, as advertising and other initial costs often more than absorb the profit on the first order.

For disposing of large quantities of raw peanuts other channels of distribution must be sought. At the present time it is difficult to obtain raw peanuts, and especially raw shelled peanuts, through ordinary retail channels. Yet recent experiments have shown that there is a definite demand for raw shelled peanuts on the part of the housekeeper if they are made available.

20 Recipes for the use of peanuts in the home can be found in U. S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook Separate 746, The Peanut, A Great American Food, by H. S. Bailey and J. A. LeClerc; also in U. S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1917, pp. 289–301.

During 1923 a cooperative association in Virginia experimented with putting up No. 1 shelled Virginia peanuts in lithographed cartons holding 1 pound and shipped in cases of 24 cartons. A booklet of recipes and instructions for roasting and salting at home was inclosed in each carton. They were advertised only slightly in a few cities, where they were sold to some extent through grocers and 5-and-10-cent stores. It was felt by close observers of the situation that with more extensive advertising and distribution, and a more reasonable price, the cartons might have moved readily.

In an experiment carried on in an important southern city a few years ago, shelled Spanish peanuts were placed in some 25 of the more important grocery stores. The shelfer induced the grocers to take the peanuts on condition that if they did not sell in 30 days the goods would be taken off their hands. For the peanuts sold, the grocers agreed to pay a price one-third higher than prevailing carlot quotations. Each grocer was furnished with a white porcelain pan about 2 inches deep, in which the peanuts were displayed on a prominent counter in the store. In the pan was placed a white placard calling the attention of the customers to the fact that raw peanuts could now be purchased in small quantities, shelled and ready for use. Printed directions for preparing the nuts were given with each sale. As a result of this campaign every store placed repeat orders, and the store managers were optimistic over the future for the sale of raw Spanish peanuts in small lots.

It is important that the peanuts be on the shelves of the retailers before any large amount of advertising is undertaken, so that they will be available to the housekeeper when demand for them is created. Two possible methods of packing raw peanuts for the retail trade have been mentioned more often than any others. The lithographed cartons, already tried out in a limited way for No. 1 Virginia peanuts, are also suitable, in 1 and 2-pound sizes for both jumbo and fancy peanuts in the shell and for extra large shelled Virginias, and for No. 1 shelled Spanish. The lithographed labels might bear the name of one shipper or a group of shippers. The cartons could be packed at the mills, and shipped in solid cars or in small quantities in cars of sacked peanuts. In the consuming markets they would be sold through wholesalers and chain stores by the grocery trade. It has been suggested that many people, accustomed to buying an occasional small bag of roasted peanuts from a street vender, would welcome the opportunity of buying a pound or two of jumbos in the shell and roasting the peanuts themselves.

Another plan that has been suggested is for the shipper to include 2-pound paper sacks with each order, 60 with 120-pound bags of shelled peanuts and 45 to 55 with bags of peanuts in the shell, depending on the weight of the nuts. These sacks should bear neat lithographed labels. They could be filled with peanuts either by the city jobber or wholesale grocer, or by the retailer. A circular giving brief descriptions of how to prepare raw peanuts could be given with each order or might be supplied free by the shipper upon receipt of a lithographed label taken from one of his cartons or bags. At first, peanuts would need to be given special display in the retailer's store like any other new article, to bring them to the attention of the shopper. The old merchandizing axiom, "Goods 75379°-267