the James, and other
large rivers, it is a common occurrence to see, not thousands only, but
tens of thousands of blackbirds in a single field at one time. They
often go in flocks covering acres on acres of ground, and with their
ceaseless activity and endless trilling, present an appearance of which
city-bred people can form no adequate idea. Of course they destroy a
vast amount of peanuts in a short time, unless speedily driven off.

There are also several species of field rats and mice, together with the
domestic rats and mice that get into the shocks to feed on the pods,
where they remain until disturbed by the pickers. Everything seems fond
of the Peanut after it is made, and if the planter escapes the insect
enemies in the summer, the exemption is more than offset by the numerous
and voracious depredators of the fall and winter.

And against most of them, there is no effective remedy, the planter
cannot watch his crop all the time, and traps are hardly worth using. It
is true, something may be done with steel traps for such animals as the
fox, raccoon, and squirrel. But for the rest, despatch in removing the
crop from the field, is the only certain preventive. Even then the
planter does not entirely escape, for rats and mice follow him within
doors, and riot in luxurious living so long as a single shock remains
undisturbed. Perhaps no crop the Southern farmer grows is subject to
heavier or oftener repeated losses than the Peanut. Yet, despite it all,
it is a crop that often pays very handsome returns. It has been, and is,
the sheet anchor of many an East Virginia farmer, and if prices hold up,
will continue to be, so long as there are lands here that will produce
thirty bushels of peanuts to the acre. This is but the minimum; the
maximum is not known; a hundred and thirty bushels per acre has been
attained.

=Detached Peanuts.=--In the process of digging and shocking peanuts,
many pods must necessarily become detached from the vines. Some of
these remain in the soil, out of sight, and numbers more are scattered
over the ground, from one side of the field to the other. If the vines
are fully matured, and have changed color or shed their leaves, and
especially if frost has touched them, the pods come off much more freely
than if the vines are still green, or scarcely done growing. Generally,
the detached pods are the best of the crop, being those first matured,
and which are therefore solid and heavy.

Of cours