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 course these peanuts must not be lost. Women and children are employed to pick them up at so much per bushel. If it is found that many pods remain in the ground, a cultivator or light plow is run along the rows to bring them in sight. In this way the most of the loose peanuts are saved. Still, numbers will be left in the ground. The planter is at no loss, however, to secure these also, which he does by turning his fattening hogs on the ground as soon as he can remove the crop from the field. Hogs are exceedingly fond of the Peanut, and as soon as they find them out, they will continue to root for them as long as one can be had. Frequently, every square yard of large fields, will be burrowed over by the hogs in their search for the detached peanuts. No crop the planter grows will fatten a hog so quickly as the Peanut. Thus in the harvesting of this beautiful and profitable crop, nothing is allowed to be lost.