Mint Farming in Nappanee
Notes on the mint industry in Nappanee From the Nappanee News and Nappanee Advance--News By Richard Pletcher
Mint to Onions to Hemp back to Mint
- 1893 $5 acre mint recommended by G. N. Murry.
- 1894 Onions with 25 employees.
- 1895 B&O Railroad put in 500’ siding to pick up onion crop for shipping.
- 1909 574 carloads of onions were shipped.
- 1912 Competition, erosion and costs dropped onion profitability.
- 1912 Introduced hemp, which grew to 15 ft at harvest, to keep the soil together.
- 1915 96% of national production of hemp in Nappanee fields.
Mint
- 1900 Nappanee News announced that the mint industry had died out in Elkhart County.
- 1913 Hartman Bros built a mint still. $3.00 pound. 1 ½ hrs to distill 20 pounds of oil. About 50 pounds to the acres.
- 1924 10,000 acres in Indiana and 3,000 in Michigan, 3/4 of U.S. mint and ½ world production, $14.00 per pound.
- 1926 Attempts were made to move national mint market from New York to South Bend.
- 1926 Mint Growers association meeting. New York speculators trying to drive price down to $5 per pound, last year's crop around $14. 1926 crop only 11% higher than 1925 crop.
- 1926 Peppermint oil sold at $5.75 and spearmint oil at $4.
- 1927 Price dropped to $2.50, lower than 1893.
- 1927 John Getz, filed manager for St. Joseph Valley Mint Growers lost a court battle to prevent the association being put into receivership. The association was insolvent, indebted to extent of $11,000 and operating at an annual loss of $10,000. And so it goes.
- 1927 Light yield, heavy rains and rank crop. $3.00 per pound.
- 1942 N.K. Ellis in charge of muck crop research work at Purdue
University recommended the following items to watch:
- Use English peppermint.
- Have roots free of "Leopard Spot" (the same as mint anthracnose.)
- Guard against mint rootrot, a soil born bacterial disease.
- Fertilize 300 pounds per acre.
- Plant early spring using roots (Using plants is hazardous in spreading disease.) Spray with 4-4-50 Bordeaux.
- Cut mint when reaches 50% menthol.
- Keep color light with cleanliness.
- The last oil is highest in menthol.
- Seal containers during storage. Nappanee Marsh Tamarack swamps of Kankakee River head waters, drained with clay tile, with government assistance, to lower the water table 4 feet. First year plant row mint, plow under, next year becomes meadow mint.
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