Part 7

This is not the only way in which they are eaten. Jean's mother boils them with celery and mashes them as we do potatoes. The nuts are also ground into a flour from which bread is made. They are often used in the dressing for fowls.

Confectioners use great quantities of chestnuts. In Lyons there are establishments where as many as two hundred persons are employed in preparing them.

The nuts are first peeled, and then boiled in clear water, which removes the thin coating next the kernel. They are then placed in a sirup flavored with Mexican vanilla, in which they remain for about three days. After draining, they are coated with vanilla or chocolate and packed in attractive boxes. In this form they are worth forty-five or fifty cents a pound.

A BAG OF PEANUTS

Last summer Harry's parents took him with them on a visit to Virginia. Harry has always lived in New York City, and the country life of the South was very interesting to him.

They visited friends who live on a beautiful _plantation_, as the farms in the South are called. A driveway lined with grand old trees leads through the flower-studded lawn up to the retired manor house, whose wide verandas completely circle it round.

Beyond the house are the stables where work horses, driving horses, and saddle horses are kept; and beyond these is the pretty little boathouse, standing on the bank of a small river that winds its way through the plantation.

The morning after Harry arrived, his friend Bert asked him if he would like to go across the river to see the men harvest peanuts.

Now whenever Harry had wanted peanuts, he had always gone to a stand and bought a sack. He had never thought about where they came from. He had heard of shaking nuts from trees, so he supposed that they were going to the woods.

He was therefore much surprised when Bert took him to a field across the river where men were plowing vines from the ground.

"Do peanuts grow in the ground?" he asked.

"Why, of course they do," answered Bert.

"I thought that nuts grew on trees," said Harry.

"Father says that the peanut is not a _real_ nut," replied his friend. "He says they should be called _ground nuts_ or _ground peas_." He pulled up one of the vines, and the boys threw themselves down under a tree to examine it.

When the small clods of soil clinging to the roots of the plant had been removed, Harry saw a number of pods which he recognized as peanuts.

Opening one of the pods, Bert took out the kernels.

"These," said he, "are the _seeds_, and they are planted much as other seeds are.

"Before they are planted the shell must be removed, but we have to be careful not to break the thin skin that covers the kernel. If that be broken, the seed will not grow.

"The kernels are planted about one foot apart, in rows that are, as you see, about three feet apart. Sometimes they are planted by hand and sometimes by machinery."

"I wonder if peanuts are raised in the country around New York," said Harry.

"No, I think not," replied Bert, "for they are very easily killed by frost. Great quantities are raised in North Carolina and in Tennessee. Father says that the negroes of western Africa raised them long, long before they were known in the United States. He says that they are a very important article of food there, and that whole villages take part in the planting and harvesting.

"After the vines blossom," continued Bert, "a very strange thing happens."

"What is it?" asked Harry.

"The flower stalks bend downward and push themselves right into the soil, and on these the pods develop. If the stalks do not enter the earth within a few hours after the flowers fall, they die."

Harry now watched the plowing. The plows were drawn up and down the rows and ran directly under the vines, lifting them out of the soil. After they had been plowed out about two hours, men took them upon pitchforks and piled them up. Harry noticed that some of the piles were covered with corn fodder, and asked why this was. Bert told him that it was to keep out the rain.

"What happens to the nuts after the vines have been piled up?" said Harry.

"They remain in the piles fifteen or twenty days, and are then spread out on the ground or hauled to the barn, where the nuts are picked off," answered Bert. "Sometimes they are picked by hand and sometimes by machinery. Let us go to the lower field; we have an earlier variety there, and the nuts are being picked now."

They found men, women, and children picking the pods one by one and dropping them into baskets. These were emptied into sacks. Harry tried to lift one of these, and was surprised to find it so heavy. Bert told him that it weighed about one hundred pounds.

"Do you burn the vines after the nuts are picked?" asked Harry.

"No," said Bert, "they are fed to the cattle. We call the vines _peanut hay_."

Bert explained that his father sold the sacks of nuts to the factory, where they were cleaned and sorted.

The next day the boys went to town and visited the peanut factory.

The nuts were first put through a machine which removed the dirt. They were then polished and sorted into four grades. The poorest grade is used in making peanut candy. The nuts were then sacked, and were ready to be shipped to the North.

Harry learned that an oil is made from the nuts which is used as olive oil is used, and also that peanut butter is produced from them. He found that many men were employed on plantations all through Virginia and other states of the South, in raising the peanuts that are sold on the streets of every city and town in our country.

ASSORTED NUTS

After the Thanksgiving dinner had been eaten, the nuts were passed, and the children asked Uncle John to tell them something about a few of them.

"All right," said he. "You pick out the ones that you want to know about."

Frank handed him an almond.

"This nut," said Uncle John, "came from sunny Spain. It grew not far from the blue Mediterranean. Almonds are raised in most parts of southern Europe and in the northern part of Africa. Ages ago they grew in the Holy Land, and are mentioned in the Bible."

"Do almonds grow in any part of our country?" asked Helen.

"I think they grow in California," said Frank.

"You are right," said Uncle John. "There are many almond orchards in the southern part of the state.

"An almond tree in full bloom is a beautiful sight. The blossoms are white, tinted with pink, and as they appear before the leaves do, there is nothing to hide them."

"Does the nut have a covering?" inquired Mary.

"Yes," replied Uncle John. "When the nut is ripe, the shuck opens gradually, and sometimes the nuts fall out.

"When people have large orchards, they spread pieces of canvas under the trees and then shake them or beat them by means of long poles.

"The nuts that do not fall out of the shucks are obtained by opening the shuck with a knife. The nuts are then dried, and are ready for market."

As soon as Uncle John had finished, Mary handed him a hazelnut. "Please tell about this one," said she.

"I have often gone hazel nutting when I was a boy," said her uncle. "Hazelnuts grow on bushes in thickets. They are six or eight feet high and very slender. Baskets are sometimes made of them, and I have often used them for arrows.

"Sometimes the nuts grow singly, and sometimes in groups of two or three. A bur covers the nut, which sticks very closely until it is ripe. Then the nuts often fall out.

"After I had gathered the hazelnuts, I used to spread them out on the roof of the wood house to dry."

"Nuts that look just like these are called filberts," said Helen.

"Filberts are cultivated hazelnuts," replied Uncle John; "they are larger than the wild ones."

"I would like to know how this nut grows," said Helen, handing her uncle a black nut shaped like a triangular prism.

"This," said Uncle John, "came from Brazil, and is called a Brazil nut. Do you know where Brazil is?"

"It is in the northeastern part of South America," replied Helen.

"The great Amazon River is in Brazil, and it flows through tropical forests," said Mary.

"Much of our coffee comes from Brazil," said Frank.

Uncle John then told the children that Brazil nuts come from the northern part of Brazil and from the Orinoco valley.

Helen asked if they grow as walnuts and hickory nuts do.

"No," answered her uncle, "they grow inside of a great case or shell. There are from eighteen to twenty-five in one shell, which is nearly as large as a man's head."

"How are the nuts got out of the shells?" asked Mary.

"When they fall, men break them open and take out the nuts," replied Uncle John. "Most of them are sent down the Amazon to the city of Para and from there shipped to the United States and other countries."

None of the children knew where Para is situated, so they all went to the library to look at the atlas. After they had located it, Uncle John told them of his visit to the city and of the wonderful things which he saw on a steamboat trip up the Amazon River.

A STRANGE CONVERSATION

One evening after I had been reading for some time, I went to the kitchen to get a drink of water. That part of the house was dark and quiet, and as I stepped through the doorway, I heard low, musical voices, apparently in the pantry. I was very much surprised, you may be sure, and I kept perfectly still, and listened.

"Yes," said a voice, which I could barely hear, "I am a long way from home indeed, and sometimes it makes me quite lonely when I think of it."

"Tell us about your home, and how you lived," said another low voice.

"Well," began the first speaker, "my name is _Pepper_. With twenty-five or thirty brothers and sisters I grew in a cluster on a vine. We were but a small part of the family, for there were similar clusters all over our vine. We were about as large as peas, and grew somewhat after the fashion of currants.

"All about were other vines to which friends and relatives were attached. Pepper vines are always anxious to get to the top, and so some of these vines climbed trees and some twined themselves about poles, which men had set in the ground for this purpose. Our vine was three or four years old when we appeared on it."

"How long did you live on the vine?" asked a voice that I had not heard before.

"Only a few months," replied Pepper. "You see, we had to make room for another set of berries. Two sets appear each year for twenty years or more.

"Under the influence of the tropical sunshine and the warm rains we grew day by day, and we were as happy as the butterflies and birds about us. By and by we began to turn red. All of this time a _hull_ or coat was forming on the outside of our bodies.

"Before we became entirely red, workmen came to the field, and, by rubbing us between their hands, separated us from the stems to which we lovingly clung.

"After having been picked, I was, with many others, placed upon a mat to dry. These mats were all about us, each covered with berries. After being thoroughly dried we were put into a mill and ground, and I became what I am now, _Black Pepper_."

"Are there other kinds of pepper?" asked some one.

"Oh, yes," said Pepper, "there is _White Pepper_, and _Red_, or _Cayenne Pepper_. Some of my friends were made into White Pepper. They were soaked in limewater for about two weeks, and this, of course, softened and wrinkled their hulls which had always fitted so nicely. This was bad enough, but it was not the worst."

"What happened next?" said several voices.

"They were then," continued Pepper, "trodden under the bare feet of dark-skinned men, and this rubbed off their hulls completely. After this they were ground as we had been.

"Cayenne Pepper is not a member of our family at all, although it has the same name. I have looked up its genealogy, and I find that it received its name from the city of Cayenne, in French Guiana, near which it grows. It is in the form of bell-shaped pods, and grows on low, bushy plants instead of vines.

"The pods are green at first, but red when ripe. No doubt you have seen strings of them hanging in the grocery store when you were on the shelves. People sometimes use the pods as they are, but usually they are dried, ground, mixed with yeast, and baked into flat cakes like crackers. When these cakes are ground, Red, or Cayenne Pepper, is produced. It is put up in little boxes just as we are.

"Pepper used to be regarded as a great luxury," the speaker went on. "Until the eighteenth century the Portuguese handled almost all of it. It was not uncommon for rents to be paid with pepper. If any of you have read ancient history, you know that when Alaric took Rome he demanded, among other things, one thousand pounds of pepper as a ransom.

"My home was in the East Indies," said Pepper, "but there are members of our family living in the Philippines, India, Mexico, the West Indies, and other tropical countries."

"Your story is a very interesting one," said a voice, "and now, if you care to hear it, I will tell something of my life."

"Yes, do tell us," said several at once.

"Very well, I will follow the example of our friend Pepper and introduce myself at once. I am known as Ginger. I have relatives living in China, in India, and in the western part of Africa, but I came from the West Indies. The Ginger family is not like that of Pepper; it has no lofty notions."

Pepper seemed a little inclined to get angry, so Ginger hastened to say: "I mean that our vines do not climb trees or poles, but run along the ground. I was a _root_ and not a _fruit_."

"When I was about a year old I, with countless friends, was dug from the ground. We were cut from the vines and put into vats of scalding water."

"That was _dreadful_," said Pepper.

"We were treated in that way to prevent us from _sprouting_," continued Ginger. "After being taken out of the water, we were thoroughly dried and then ground. We were then put up in cans and boxes and sold as _Black Ginger_. Others were scraped before being ground, and they were then called _White Ginger_.

"We were placed on board a great ship and finally landed at New York. After remaining in a large store there for some time, I was brought to the corner grocery, and so I found my way to this shelf.

"I am gradually wasting away, and I shall not last a great while longer. In my tropical home I seemed to be of no use to anybody, while now I am called for frequently by the cook, and my services seem to be appreciated, so I am happy."

"To be of some real use in this world is the greatest joy of life," remarked a strange voice.

There was silence for a moment, and then Ginger said "May we not hear from you, friend?"

"Your stories almost make me believe that I am still in the land of my birth," was the reply.

There was a peculiar little rattle about the voice, which I recognized at once as belonging to Cinnamon.

"For several years I was rocked to and fro by gentle tropic breezes or lashed about by storms. From my perch I could see beautiful flowers, bright insects, and even serpents in the thicket at my feet. Birds of brilliant plumage often perched upon me. My home was on the island of Ceylon.

"It is often said that where there is much bark there is no bite. In my own case that is not so."

"I do not understand," said Ginger.

"Why," said Cinnamon, laughing, "I am _all_ bark, and I have considerable bite, as those who have tasted me know.

"I was taken from one of the smaller limbs of a cinnamon tree. I was slipped within a larger piece of bark, for we each rolled up when stripped from the limbs. A still larger piece was slipped over us and so on until quite a bundle had been formed. Some were quite short, and some were three feet in length."

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End of Project Gutenberg's How We are Fed, by James Franklin Chamberlain