Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/220

 210 PEANUT turns a saddler and harness maker, watch and clock maker, silver smith, painter, modeller, taxidermist, dentist, and lecturer. He received instructions in art from a German painter named Hesselius, and from Copley. In 1770 he visited England, and for several years was a pupil of West. Returning to America, he settled first in Annapolis and afterward in Philadelphia, and acquired celebrity as a por- trait painter. Among his works were seve- ral portraits of Washington, and a series form- ing the nucleus of a national portrait gallery. He commanded a company of volunteers in the battles of Trenton and Germantown, and also served in the Pennsylvania legislature. About 1785 he commenced a collection of nat- ural curiosities in Philadelphia, founding the well known "Peale's museum," in which he lectured on natural history. He aided in found- ing the Pennsylvania academy of fine arts. II. Rembrandt, an American painter, second son of the preceding, born in Bucks co., Pa., Feb. 22, 1778, died in Philadelphia, Oct. 3, 1860. In 1796 he settled in Charleston, S. C., as a portrait painter, and between 1801 and 1804 he studied in London under West. Subse- quently he passed several years in Paris, and in 1809 returned to Philadelphia. Thenceforth till near the close of his life he was chiefly oc- cupied in portrait painting. Among his other works were two well known historical pictures, "The Roman Daughter" and "The Court of Death;" the latter, 24 by 13 ft. in size, was widely exhibited. He published "Notes on Italy" (Philadelphia, 1831), "Portfolio of an Artist" (1839), and "Graphics" (1845). PEAOTT, a leguminous plant, arachis Jiypo- gcea, also called ground pea and ground nut, and in some of the southern states known as pindar and gouber ; by the French it is called arachide and pistache de terre. The genus aracliis (a name of unknown origin) compri- ses seven species, six of which are natives of Brazil, and one, the peanut, is of doubtful na- tivity, being very generally cultivated in trop- ical countries ; some regard it as indigenous to western Africa. The plant is a diffusely branched trailing annual, with abruptly pin- nate leaves with four leaflets ; the small yellow flowers are in axillary heads or spikes ; calyx with one narrow lobe making a lower lip, the upper lip four-toothed, and with a long thread- like tube ; keel of the corolla incurved and pointed ; stamens united into a tube by their filaments, each alternate anther shorter than the others; ovary at the bottom of the long calyx tube ; after the flower falls away, the forming pod is forced into the soil by the elon- gation of the rigid deflexed stalk to which it is attached ; this stalk is not manifest at flower- ing time, but appears later, and curves in such a manner as to push the young pod quite below the surface ; if by any accident this is prevent- ed, the fruit ceases to grow, but when covered with earth it rapidly enlarges and forms a thick-shelled, indehiscent pod with a strongly netted surface, an inch or more long, often contracted between the seeds, of which it con- tains two or three ; these have very thick co- tyledons and an extremely short radicle. This nut is of great commercial importance; im- mense quantities are produced on the W. coast Peanut (Arachis hypogsea). of Africa to supply the European demand ; it is largely cultivated in South America, and in our southern states from Virginia southward it is an important crop. For its culture in this country good corn land is selected, which should not be of a reddish color, as that stains the shells and diminishes the price ; the land is marked off in furrows 3 ft. apart, and in these two peas, deprived of their shells, are dropped at intervals of 18 in., and covered an inch and a half deep; the crop is cultivated until the pods begin to form, when it is laid by. Har- vesting is done after the first frost ; the vines are dug with pronged hoes, allowed to lie two days to dry, and then stacked or taken to a shed to cure ; in about two weeks the pea- nuts are picked from the vines, rejecting the "pops," as the empty pods are called, and cleaned for market; picking is slow work, as an expert hand can pick only about three bush- els a day ; a machine has been used for this work with fair success. The pods are cleaned by the use of a fanning mill, and as the price much depends upon their bright appearance, they are sometimes placed in a revolving cyl- inder where they are polished by mutual attri- tion ; and the very white pods are made so by the use of the fumes of burning sulphur to bleach them. A good crop is 100 bushels to the acre, and it is regarded as more profitable than cotton or tobacco. Two varieties are