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Peppermint

Chapter 4: COUNTRIES WHERE GROWN.
By Alice Henkel
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About This Book

The bulletin provides a practical overview of peppermint: botanical description and distinctions among common varieties, methods of propagation, and the regions where it is grown worldwide and in the United States. It details cultivation practices, hazards to the crop, harvesting and on‑farm distillation procedures including still design, and the chemistry and uses of peppermint oil and menthol. Historical and commercial aspects are discussed, including export markets, price trends, and an episode of market control that affected production. Illustrations supplement the text with depictions of runners, leaves, flowering tops, and a typical still.

COUNTRIES WHERE GROWN.

The most important peppermint-producing countries are the United States, England, and Japan. Peppermint is grown on a smaller scale in Germany, France, Italy, Russia, China, and southern India.

In Japan, peppermint cultivation is said to have been undertaken before the Christian era. The plant grown there is not, as already stated, the peppermint cultivated in our country, but Mentha arvensis piperascens, which is entirely distinct from the true peppermint, not only botanically but also in taste and odor.

Peppermint is cultivated on many drug farms in England, especially at Mitcham, the middle of the eighteenth century marking the beginning of peppermint cultivation in that country. Up to 1805, however, there were no stills at Mitcham, and the crops obtained there were sent to London for distillation. About 1850, at which time the peppermint industry in England was at its height, the effect of American competition began to be felt, and caused a decided check in the production.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] In response to a steady demand for information relating to the peppermint industry, Miss Alice Henkel, Assistant in Drug-Plant Investigations, has been requested to bring together the most important facts regarding the history, culture, and utilization of the peppermint plant. The information here presented has been obtained in large part from scattered articles on the subject, and in part from experience with the plant in the Testing Gardens of the Department of Agriculture.

Rodney H. True, Physiologist in Charge.

Office of Drug-Plant Investigations.

Washington, D. C., October 14, 1905.