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About The Oregon statesman. (Salem, Or.) 1916-1980 | View Entire Issue (May 6, 1928)
THE OREGON STATESMAN FARMING" AND INDUSTRIAL MAGAZINE SECTION fixe Slogan Pages Are i ours; Aid in Making Them Helpful to l our W onderful City and Section fSTRICT IN SALEM DUSTRIES fcJSimtfcfln Cimseciinttuve Yeair THE STATESMAN dedicates several pages each week in the interest of the fifty-two to a hundred basic industries of the Salem District. Letters and articles from people with vision are solicited. This is your section. Help make Salem grow. DIN'L J. FRY OF THE CAPITAL CITY LEADING CRUDE DRUG BUYER OF STATE Is Pieneer Dealer in Cascara Bark, Oregon Grape Root, Ore gon Balsam Fir, Oil of Peppermint and Other Oregon Pro ducts That are Used in the Manufactures Time Will Come When Cascara Bark Will Have to Be Cultivated Crop, and It Is Native and Will Flourish Here flie annual Crude Drug Slogan number of the Statesman has been pleased to say and repeat for nine consecutive years that Salem has the right to the claim of being the crude drug center of Oregon, partly on account. of the fact that the largest crude drug buyer of the state is In this city in the person of Daniel J. Fry, with headquarters with the Fry Drug company. 2S0 North Commercial street. He is a pioneer buyer of crude drugs: has provided the principal Oregon market for these articles for a much longer time than nine years. In fact, for 25 to .,0 years or longer. He buys cascara bark, Oregon grape root, Oregon balsam fir, oil of peppermint, blue poppy seed, and other Oregon crude drugs and botanicals that are off ered. Mr. Fry has a warehouse at Salem and one at Tillamook, and he has agents all the way along the whole of the Oregon coast, from Clatsop county to the Cali fornia line, in Curry county, and over that line in California, buy ing crude drugs, and especially cascara bark. Most of the peel is from the mountains in the coast region, but some of it comes from the Cascades. The market price today on dry cascara bark, delivered, is 6 cents a pound. The price depends part ly on the peel. The highest price here just now for old peel is 7c. In some former years, the prices have ruled much higher. The Mint Industry There wag a boom in the mint industry of the Salem district in 1925; a price boom, owing to a scarce crop in the Illinois, In diana and Michigan districts, due to a severe freeze there at the wrong time. The ieak of the war prices was $9: but peppermint oil went to $12 a pound In 1924 and in 1925 it went up to $20 a pound, THIS WEEK'S SLOGAN DID YOU KNOW that Salem is the principal market of the crude drug supplies for Oregon; that every farm in this district ought to have a drug garden; that we are already leading in peppermint production of first qual ity; tat cascara sagrada has to be cultivated or it will run out, and the world must have more and more of it; that the Dean of the School of Pharmacy, Oregon Agri cultural College, has repeatedly said that drugs can be grown at one-tenth the expense and with twice the yield that they can be produced in Michigan and Minnesota, and Professor F. A. Gilf illin of that department says Oregon must eventually become the drug garden of the world, and that the possibilities are here for the development of a great drug garden industry, which ought to be done quickly? and even, at the peak, to $28 to $30 a pound. , Peppermint oil was being con tracted for in 1926 at $6, $5 and $4 a pound, on three year con tracts, which makes it a bonanza crop, for the cost of producing the oil here is only $1.50 to $2 a pound, and farmers still have the hay; a good hay with little more cost than producing any other hay crop, except for the distilling of iL The high prices of 1924 and 1925 made a mint boom in the Salem district. The acreage in western Oregon and Washington (mostly in the Salem district), in creased in 1925 over 1925 from about 600 acres to about 2500 acres, and, it is about 3500 this year. About 3000 of this is in the Willamette valley, principally in the Salem trading area. Most of the rest of it is along the Colum bia river on the Washington side opposite Oregon territory. The oil of peppermint we produce here in the Salem district is high grade in menthol content, also in ester content; the highest produced in the United States. It is also the purest produced in this country. The standard requirement of menthol and esters - contents is generally exceeded by the pepper mint oil that goes to the markets from the Salem district. There is bound to be a steady increase in the acreage of pepper mint in the Salem district. We will ere long have away above a million dollar annual crop, the way things are going. The value of the Oregon and Washington crop last year was in round num bers a half million dollars most of it produced in Oregon. The limit will be the market for our product. And, in. due time the bnlk of the peppermint oil Is bound to be grown in this dis trict; following the lines of least resistance, like water flowing down hill becauee we grow the greatest per acre tonnage here, and our oil is highest in menthol and esters content, and the pur est. And, the final test, it is the best flavored oil produced in any country. The market for peppermint oil here in Salem now is $2.75 to $3 a pound. Mr. Fry has lately been buying some at the former figure. He le ready to buy the product at all times at the highest market price. A Great Future Mr. Fry is a believer in the eventual growth into immense proportions of our durg garden industry. Cascara will eventually run out, as a forest production; there is no suitable substitute, and it will have' to be cultivated. Here is the place to raise it, along with hundreds of other crude drug trees and shrubs and plants and flowers and seeds and roots. CONCENTRATED MILK IN LARGE VOLUME WASHINGTON'. May 5. (AP) Concentrated milk has become one of the world's most important manufactured foods. Reports at the department of commerce show it is used in practically every coun try of the world either as a fresh milk substitute or as a food. World production is estimated to be a round three and a half billion pounds, with the United States ac counting for approximately 60 percent of the output. Great Brit ain is by far the world's large im porter. We Buy Cascara Bark Oregon Grape Root Oregon Peppermint Oregon Balsam Fir Write for Prices Before You Sell Daniel J. Fry Wholesale Dealer in Oregon Crude Drugs and Botanicals 280 North Commercial Street SALEM IS THE MINT AND THE COMING. GREATPEPPERMINT OIL CENTER- We Have a Half Million Dollar Crop of Peppermint Oil a Year Now in Oregon and Washington, the Bulk of the Product Being in the Salem District We Are Developing a Mint Cult and Building Up a Refinery Center for the Essential Oils There were produced in west ern Oregon and Washington last year about 125,000 pounds of pep- perment oil; most of it in the Wil lamette valley, and the bulk of the Wilamette Valley supply in the Salem trading area. Nearly all the rest of it was grown opposite the Oregon shore, in the territory along the Columbia on tlie Washington side. Tue Willamette valley had (and has) about 3000 of the acreage devoted to mint growing. Most of the rest is along the Colombia river in Wash ington. The bulk of the Wil lamette valley acreage is in the Salem district The value of the crop of pepper mint oil produced in Oregon and Washington last year was around a half million dollars. The prices ran from $5 a pound for contract oil down to $2.50 a pound for that not contracted. Perhaps about 55,060 pounds were contracted. There was a carry over of some 19.600 pounds from 1926 and for mer years. There are yet about 8000 pounds of peppermint oil unsold in Oregon and Washington. This Year crop This year's crop pf peppermint oil in this district will likely be as large as the output of last year. It may be larger. As soon as there is another period of high prices, or even of prices ranging around or above $3 a pound, there will Salem, Oregon undoubtedly be another rapid in crease of the acreage. This is bound to go on, from period to period, and from year to year, be cause of the fact that we can grow here a mint that will produce more peppermint oil to the acre than can be realized elsewhere in this country; and an oil that has a higher menthol and ester con tent, and a purer oiF. and an oil with a uniformly better flavor. These things are bound to count for growth. They are bound to transfer the peppermint center to the Salem district. Salem is marked out by nature for the mint center of thecountry. And our people are mint minded. We have a mint cult here. Our people have learned to grow mint and to extract the peppermint oil, and now they are to refine the oil. There will follow, in the nature of things, a big essential oil pro duction here. We can grow most of the essential oil plants, with the same advantage as we possess in our soil and sunshine and showers in the production of peppermint oil. There is no predicting how far we may go in this drug garden field. We may conceivably go on to the large scale production of perfumes on qp to the height of turning out attar of roses. 1 INTERESTS SOUTH FARM SAVANNAH. Oa., May 5. (AP) Local experiments with bamboo are declared by growers to have demonstrated the importance of its culture in the south. There is a market for both the timber bam boo and the edible varieties. A grove near here has attained a height of 60 feet. Young shoots of the edible bamboo are used as a vegetable and salad. Producers say most bamboos will thrive wherever cotton is grown successfully, preferring fer tile, well-drained soil. They make an excellent windbreak and as ev ergreens are sought for landscape ornamentation. The light poles serve a great array of farm pur poses, while the heavier timber is used in the manufacture of furni ture, building material and paper. For the last nine years there has been a federal ban on the importa tion of live bamboo or seed from foreign countries, to keep out dan gerous plant diseases and insects. .Georgia growers cooperate with the department of agriculture in obtaining stock. s.