This story is based on rumours I heard in Schotland. I have no original source. What they told me is that in the last century the growing of cotton in the US of A was taking too much from the soil. Then the cottonfarmers discovered that peanuts could recover the soil. Biologists now understand this because the peanut plant (Arachis sp.) belongs to the Leguminosae family (a.k.a. Pappilionidae). Members of this plant family often live in symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria. Nitrogen is an important nutrient for plants.

But a new problem arose; all these cottonfarmers produced heaps of peanuts, but there was no market for it. And what do economiists do when there is no market ? They create one !
The story goes that a man was send into the lab and was not allowed to get out of it untill he found a solution. This guy invented dozens of applications, and as you may have guessed; one of them was PEANUTBUTTER !

A book called 'Een potje pindakaas' (a jar of peanutbutter) from de Kleine Aarde tells a similar story; they tell that at the beginning of this century an American biologist invented 300 products in which peanuts where used, among which were glue, lipstick, ink, ointment, shampoo and icecream. He was able to make a complete dinner in which all servings where made with pinda's, from the soup as an appetizer untill the icecream !