Ward Vail

During the "Great Price Rise" of the mid 1920s, one Michigan grower, Ward Vail, who had managed to produced only one barrel of peppermint oil from his first crop, received a check for $12,000!

The "Great Price Rise" spurred the expansion, at least temporarily, of the mint industry to areas outside of the Mid-West and Pacific Northwest, including California. By the 1950s, the spread of verticillium wilt threatened the survival of the peppermint industry in the United States.

M. J. Murray, working for the A. M. Todd Company, developed a wilt resistant variety of peppermint in what the industry regards as the first successful use of irradiation for vegetative propagation.

Dr. M. J. Murray

Harry Visser, Sunnside, Washington

That Washington and Oregon lead the nation today in the production of mint oil, followed by Idaho, Montana and the Mid-West.