Importing peanuts to China 130 years ago, Charles Rogers Mills was regarded as the “Father of Modern Peanuts in China”.
Sent to China by the Presbyterian Church in the United States, Mills had worked in the area of Dengzhou (now Penglai in Yantai City, Shandong Province) for more than 30 years, making great contributions to the spread of the gospel and the local development of Shandong.
Peanut is a kind of plant that originated in the Americas. How did the peanuts come to China from the Americas?
The import of peanuts began at the end of the 19th century in 1889. On September 27, 1924, an article titled Peanut and Soccer was published in the Berkeley Daily Gazette. The article said that “35 years ago, bishop Francis Thompson brought four packs of peanuts to China. Meanwhile, he generously gave half of the peanuts to Rev. Charles Rogers Mills who was on his way back to Shandong. Mills shared his peanuts with two farmers, asking them to plant them for three years and later share the peanuts with others. One farmer just ate all of the peanuts by the end of the year; another farmer did what Mills asked. That’s why Shandong today produces 18,000,000 bushels of American peanuts a year.”
In 1922, an American and peanut professional magazine The Peanut Promoter described that “In the previous decade, China’s export of peanuts to the United States had exceeded India, Senegal, and Gambia as dominance. China’s peanuts are mainly from Shandong, followed by Henan and Zhili. Shandong's soil and climate are very suitable for peanut cultivation. Apart from the big size of a peanut, it also contains a high amount of oil. It is amazing that farmers in Shandong are using primitive methods to grow peanuts on a small piece of land, which can cover the living expenses of the whole family. Some families even can support their sons to go to the university. In 1921, The American Food Journal mentioned that “Shandong peanuts are the largest number of export products of Shandong and the largest business of the Qingdao Port.”
The peanuts we can see nowadays are separated into two categories. One is the small peanut from Spain, the other is the big peanut from Virginia of the United States. Small peanuts have higher oil content, but with lower output. The oil content of large peanuts is lower than that of small peanuts, but its high output had completely made up for the disadvantage of low oil content. Among them, small peanuts were brought back to China and were spread by the Fujianese who traveled and lived in Southeast Asia during the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, small peanuts had become very popular in different places in China.
Nearly 400 years after the introduction of the small peanuts to China, its output still only met the domestic demand. But in just 35 years after the introduction of big peanuts, China became the dominant country of peanuts output and peanuts export while peanut is an important oil crop. Meanwhile, many modern machines were exchanged for peanuts, which provided an important material basis for China's national industrialization that began in the early period of the previous century.
- Translated by Jessie Cheong
在130年以前把大花生引入了中国，查尔斯·罗杰斯·梅理士（Charles Rogers Mills，简称梅理士），被称为“中国现代花生之父”。
（梅理士为美国长老会来华宣教士，他在山东登州一带（今山东省烟台市蓬莱）工作三十多年，为福音传播以及山东当地发展做出了巨大贡献。）
花生是一种原产于美洲的植物。花生究竟是怎么从美洲漂洋过海来到中国的呢？
大花生的引进始于19世纪末期的1889年。1924年9月27日美国的《伯克利每日公报》上刊登的一篇名为《花生和橄榄球》的文章介绍:"三十五年以前,汤普森主教带4包美国花生到中国，慷慨地把一半花生分给正要回山东的美国长老会传教士查尔斯·R·梅理士博士。梅理士博士又把花生分给了两个农民并要求他们先种上三年,然后分发给大家。一个农民在年底把花生给吃了。另外一个则按梅理士的要求做了。现在光山东一年就生产18,000,000蒲耳的美国大花生。"
1922年,美国的花生专业杂志《花生推广者》载文道:"在过去的十年里,中国对美国花生的出口已超过印度,赛内加尔和甘比亚成为第一。中国的花生主要来自山东。山东的土壤和气候非常适合花生种植。不仅个大,而且含油率高。其次是河南和直隶的花生。令人惊奇的是山东农民用非常原始的方法,在一小块地上种花生,不仅能够养活全家,而且有的人家还能供儿子上大学。"美国食品杂志《the American Food Journal》1921年刊文提到:"山东花生是山东的最大出口产品,也是青岛港的最大业务。
我们现在能够见到的花生大致可分为两种:以西班牙花生为代表的小花生和以美国弗吉尼亚花生为代表的大花生。小花生含油量更高一些,但却产量低。而大花生含油量低于小花生,但其高产的特性完全弥补了含油量低的缺点。其中小花生明朝时候由旅居东南亚的福建人带回中国并流传开来的，到清朝时期，小花生在中国多地已非常流行。
在小花生引进后的近400年里,其产量仅仅满足于国内需求。而在引进大花生以后短短的35年内,中国迅速成为了花生这一重要油料作物的第一生产国和第一出口国。用花生换回了许多现代机器,为中国上个世纪早期开始的民族工业化提供了重要的物质基础。
钩沉|中国现代花生之父——梅理士
Importing peanuts to China 130 years ago, Charles Rogers Mills was regarded as the “Father of Modern Peanuts in China”.
Sent to China by the Presbyterian Church in the United States, Mills had worked in the area of Dengzhou (now Penglai in Yantai City, Shandong Province) for more than 30 years, making great contributions to the spread of the gospel and the local development of Shandong.
Peanut is a kind of plant that originated in the Americas. How did the peanuts come to China from the Americas?
The import of peanuts began at the end of the 19th century in 1889. On September 27, 1924, an article titled Peanut and Soccer was published in the Berkeley Daily Gazette. The article said that “35 years ago, bishop Francis Thompson brought four packs of peanuts to China. Meanwhile, he generously gave half of the peanuts to Rev. Charles Rogers Mills who was on his way back to Shandong. Mills shared his peanuts with two farmers, asking them to plant them for three years and later share the peanuts with others. One farmer just ate all of the peanuts by the end of the year; another farmer did what Mills asked. That’s why Shandong today produces 18,000,000 bushels of American peanuts a year.”
In 1922, an American and peanut professional magazine The Peanut Promoter described that “In the previous decade, China’s export of peanuts to the United States had exceeded India, Senegal, and Gambia as dominance. China’s peanuts are mainly from Shandong, followed by Henan and Zhili. Shandong's soil and climate are very suitable for peanut cultivation. Apart from the big size of a peanut, it also contains a high amount of oil. It is amazing that farmers in Shandong are using primitive methods to grow peanuts on a small piece of land, which can cover the living expenses of the whole family. Some families even can support their sons to go to the university. In 1921, The American Food Journal mentioned that “Shandong peanuts are the largest number of export products of Shandong and the largest business of the Qingdao Port.”
The peanuts we can see nowadays are separated into two categories. One is the small peanut from Spain, the other is the big peanut from Virginia of the United States. Small peanuts have higher oil content, but with lower output. The oil content of large peanuts is lower than that of small peanuts, but its high output had completely made up for the disadvantage of low oil content. Among them, small peanuts were brought back to China and were spread by the Fujianese who traveled and lived in Southeast Asia during the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, small peanuts had become very popular in different places in China.
Nearly 400 years after the introduction of the small peanuts to China, its output still only met the domestic demand. But in just 35 years after the introduction of big peanuts, China became the dominant country of peanuts output and peanuts export while peanut is an important oil crop. Meanwhile, many modern machines were exchanged for peanuts, which provided an important material basis for China's national industrialization that began in the early period of the previous century.
- Translated by Jessie Cheong
Charles Rogers Mills, Father of Modern Peanuts in China
