Many people find it hard to believe that peanuts ripen in the ground, somewhat like potatoes. So, m one will be surprised to learn that cashew nuts ripen high in the sunny air, maybe twenty or forty feet above the ground. But there are a few facts about the growing cashew nuts that almost any one will find hard to believe.

Crunchy cashew nuts come from plants that grow in the warm tropics. Some cashew plants are shrubs and some are lofty shade trees forty feet tall. The glossy evergreen leaves may be six inches long and four inches wide. The first surprising fact is that the mealy cashew nut is actually the fruit of the cashew shrub or tree.

If you saw it growing you would find it hard to believe that the fruit of the cashew plant could give us that mealy morsel we call a cashew nut. The growing fit is called a cashew apple, though it is shaped more like a pear. The cashew apple is yellow or rosy red, juicy and good to eat.

You might expect to find the cashew nut inside the juicy apple, where you find the stone of a peach. But not at a".. The nut is neither all inside nor all outside of the cashew apple. Whatts more, it looks like a stubby, curved bean and it is about one inch long. Actually, it is partly in and partly out of the cashew apple. just as though you stuck your thumb in the round pear and buried one end of the nut in the hollow your thumb made.

The cashew nut meat is hidden inside two shells. The outside shell is thin and leathery. Its coat shines like glass and at first it is olive green. Later it ripens to strawberry red. The shell inside this shiny coat is hard and crusty.

When you crack it open, there at last is the curved little sausage we call the cashew nut.

The ripe cashew apples are gathered and the nuts torn away from the juicy fruit. The nuts are roasted in hot coals and the outer shells burn away. A layer of strong oil is stored between the two shells and the fire also burns this away. The crusty shells are then cracked open to free the nut meats which are wrapped in papery skins. They are given another roasting to remove their skins and at last the cashew nuts are ready to be sent to market,

We buy tons of cashew nuts every year from far away India, but the cashew plants are native Americans. They were discovered in South and Central America some 500 years ago and taken to India where they have thrived ever since.