22 



MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS» 



period of five years." For this wholesale destruction of their mint 

 fields the producers received a bonus of $1.50 per acre. Next a con- 

 tract was made by the agent with the producers of St. Joseph County, 

 Mich., agreeing to pay them $2.50 a pound for their mint oil, every 

 ounce of the mint oil to be delivered for a period of five years to the 

 agents named in the contract. They also were prohibited during 

 this period from extending their plantations and from selling roots 

 to anyone. The producers held to these contracts for about three 

 years, after which period the New York firm was not so anxious to 

 enforce them, having, in the meantime, acquired a large fortune 

 through its peppermint-oil monopoly. 



Since that period the area devoted to peppermint cultivation in 

 Michigan has steadily increased, and northern Indiana, with its prin- 

 cipal centers of production in St. Joseph, Steuben, and La Grange 

 counties, continues to place on the market a considerable quantity of 

 oil. Ohio seems to have abandoned peppermint cultivation, at least 

 on a commercial scale, and New York, for a number of years and until 

 very recently, had greatly reduced the area under peppermint, thou- 

 sands of acres formerly devoted to this crop having been given over 

 to sugar beets, onions, and celery. In 1889 Wayne County, N. Y., 

 had 3,325 acres of peppermint, whereas in 1899 there were only 300 

 acres. In 1905, about 933 acres were under cultivation. 



Special canvassers appointed by the State of Michigan a made a 

 canvass of 299 growers in the peppermint district in that State, cover- 

 ing 39 townships in nine counties (Allegan, Berrien, Branch, Cass, 

 Kalamazoo, Oakland, St. Joseph, St. Clair, and Van Buren), and 

 the total number of acres under peppermint cultivation, the number 

 of pounds of oil distilled, and the average number of pounds per acre, 

 as ascertained by this canvass, for the years 1900, 1901, and 1902, are 

 as follows: 



Items. 



Total number of acres grown 



Total number of pounds distilled _ . - 

 Average number of pounds per acre 



1900. 



2,112 



47,628^ 

 22.5 



1901. 



2,782| 



63,718! 



23.9 



1902. 



6. 400$ 



82,420i 

 12.8 



CULTIVATION. 



Peppermint cultivation is most profitable on muck lands, such as 

 are now used in Michigan for this crop and for celery and cranberry 

 culture. These muck lands were formerly marshes and swamps, 

 which have been reclaimed by draining, plowing, and cultivating, 

 the swamp vegetation having been thus subdued, and the decayed 



a Twentieth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor of the State of Michigan, 

 1903, pp. 438-147. 



