Ground-nuts

(Peanuts): IMG:p231_1.png:Chinese characters hua-sUng; also:& IE IMG:p231_2.png:Chinese characters ch'ang sMng kuo: Arachis hypogea. Ground-nuts have been cultivated for centuries in South China; but not until more recent times north of the Yangtze, for they are not mentioned by the IMG:p231_3.png:Chinese characters of the Macaktney and Amherst Emba ies, who described all the crops they saw. They are now, however, cultivated all over China, from Central Manchuria to Hainan. Ground-nuts flourish best in a sandy loam and require an abundance of sunshine during the growing period, without too much rain. These conditions exis-t in the valley of the Yellow River, in E. Shantung and S. (Jhihli and part of Honan, which are now the chief exporting districts. Large quantities are also produced in the old bed of the Yellow River, in N. Kiangsu, and also along the sea-board of Chihli towards Shan haiku an. Sowing is in early spring and the harvest in October. Cultivation is cheap and causes little trouble, and the returns are good. There are two kinds, the large and the small. The former was introduced from the United States by mi ionaries to Shantung and is called the foreign peanut. The soil in which they grow is sifted, so as to obtain even the smallest nuts. They are eaten roasted as in ihe West or are used in confectionery. The oil is used in cooking, lighting, and to adulterate the more expensive rape-seed oil; the refuse cake, for manuring purposes, is sent to Kuangtung, and the shells are used to fatten pigs. The oil production is one-third by weight of the nuts, or even more under favourable circumstances. Until the nineties little of this product was shipped abroad, but with the development of railways in North China the trade advanced by leaps and bounds. In the Lower Yellow River region, where the land has been covered with sand by succe ive floods, nothing will grow but ground-nuts, but since the demand from foreign countries set in, the farmers have planted vast areas with the crop, and the trade has a umed great proportions. In the West the extension of the oil industry, for soap making, for machinery lubrication, etc., has created the demand to which India and China respond more and more yearly. The cake is considered as one of the best for live stock. The suppre ion of opium has been another contributing factor in the growth of the trade; lily flowers, a le paying crop, have also been supplanted in the Huai River region. Although there were large shipments from the north to Kuangtung in 1896 (600,000) piculs, mostly from Chinkiang) the foreign trade did not develop until 1909, since when it has expanded enormously. In that year the IMG:p231_4.png:Chinese characters of Shantung was estimated at four million piculs IMG:p231_5.png:Chinese characters Trade Report); tlie total "original export" from all ports was over one and a half million piculs, worth Tls. 5,400,000; in 1913 (the last year before the War) the figures were respectively 2,286,000 piculs, worth Tls. 10,000,000, and just over one million exported abroad. France takes over one-third. The annual movement of oil is from 350,000 to 400,000 piculs, valued at about Tls. 10 per picul, of which 250,000 piculs annually are exported abroad. The tendency is for an increase of the shipments of oil as against those of seed. The export in 1916 was, kernels, pels. 424,917; in shell, pels. 216,840; value Tls. 1,812,251; cake, pels. 38,430, Tls. 77,558; oil, pels. 561,512, Tls. 6,000,494. Customs Reports. [N.S.]