MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 177 



Marshal Craw and Lewis Ranney commenced its culture on burr oak soil, in 

 Florence township of the same county. In the soil of these burr oak openings, 

 as they are termed (being rich, loamy and gently undulating, covered here and 

 there with a scant growth of the burr, or scrub oak), the mint was found to 

 produce better than on the prairie soil, where it required more labor to culti- 

 vate it. On the prairie soil it was often luiprofitable, due to the winter- 

 killing of the roots, occasioned by the exposing of the soil to frost in level 

 places, from which the wind had swept the snow. Its cultivation being aban- 

 doned on the prairies, it was thereafter limited to the township of Florence, 

 where it has principally been cultivated ever since, there being but little over 

 one hundred acres employed in mint, outside of St. Joseph county, in the 

 whole state. 



During the first year of its production the oil was purchased by the 

 village merchants and exchanged in New York City for merchandise suited to 

 their trade. As the product increased, these merchants acted as agents for 

 eastern dealers, who bought, sold or exported it, shipping it to Europe, where 

 it was principally disposed of in the Liverpool market. 



The mint oil being a fancy product, and not a substantial staple com- 

 modity of commerce, the surplus, after our own and the European market was 

 supplied, was of little value until there occurred a new demand. As a natural 

 consequence, competition in speculation upon its purchase and sale in the city 

 of New York became hazardous, there being many houses more or less engaged 

 in the business. At one time (about 1844) the house of Patterson, Stone & Co., 

 in that city, adopted the following enterprise, with the view of monopolizing 

 the trade in mint oil : 



This house first sent an agent to Europe to determine the amount of the 

 demand in the Liverpool market. This he did, ascertaining it to be about 

 12,000 pounds per annum. They then sent another agent west, to determine the 

 amount of the product annually. This agent found plantations in Wayne and 

 other counties of Western New York ; others still larger in the counties of 

 Ashtabula, Geauga and Cuyahoga, Ohio, and finally those of Florence, in this 

 state. The plantations in New York did not produce enough, those in Ohio 

 too much and those in Florence just about the quantity required to supply 

 the Liverpool market. He consequently entered into contract with the pro- 

 ducers in New York and Ohio, whereby he bound them under heavy penalties 

 to plow up their mint fields, destroy the roots, and not plant any more mint 

 or sell or give away any roots, or produce or sell any mint oil for the period 

 of five years. He paid them one dollar and fifty cents per acre as a bonus 

 for so doing. He then contracted with the producers of St. Joseph county to 

 pay them two dollars and fifty cents for their mint oil, delivered at such 

 agencies as he established in the county for that purpose, for a like period of 

 five years, binding them under heavy forfeitures not to sell roots to any one ; 

 not to extend their own plantations themselves, and to deliver every ounce 



