“You are entirely right, Phil,” said Ed. “A pound of boy is certainly worth fifty or fifty thousand pounds of turkey, because one boy can do more for the world than all the turkeys that were ever hatched. And when a boy eats turkey he converts it into boy, and it helps him to grow into a man.”
“Precisely!” said Irv Strong. “It cost the worthless lives of many pigs, turkeys, chickens, sheep, and cattle to make George Washington. But surely one George Washington was worth more than all the pigs, turkeys, chickens, sheep, and beef-cattle that were killed in all this country between the day he was born and the day of his death. But pardon us,” added Irv, turning to the planter, “you were going to say something more when we interrupted.”
“It was nothing of any consequence,” answered their guest, “and your little discussion has interested me more than anything I had thought of saying. But I was going to say that according to a New York newspaper’s careful calculation, that city pays more than a million dollars every spring for white flowers for Easter decorations alone, while its expenditures for flowers during the rest of the year is estimated at not less than five millions more. Then there is the peanut crop. Who ever thinks of it? Who thinks of peanuts in any serious way? Yet it was the peanut crop that saved the people of tidewater Virginia and North Carolina from actual starvation during the first few years after the Civil War. And every year that crop amounts to more than two and a half million bushels!”
“What luck for the circuses!” exclaimed Will Moreraud.
“But the circuses do not furnish the chief market for peanuts,” said Irv, who was somewhat “up” on these things.
“Where are they consumed, then?” asked Will.
“Well, the greater part of them are used in the manufacture of ‘pure’ Italian or French olive oil—most of it ‘warranted sublime,’” said Irv.
“Are we a nation of swindlers, then?” asked Phil, whose courage was always offended by any suggestion of untruth or hypocrisy or dishonesty.
“I don’t know,” said Irv, “how to draw the line there. The men who make olive oil out of peanuts stoutly contend that their olive oil is really better, more wholesome, and more palatable than that made from olives.”
“Why don’t they call it peanut oil, then, and advertise it as better than olive oil, and take the consequences?” asked upright, downright, bravely honest Phil.