90 PANAX QUINQUEFOLIUM. 
brought it to the merchants for a certain com- 
pensation. At one period the Indians about Que- 
bee and Montreal were so wholly taken up in the 
search for Ginseng, that their services could not 
be engaged for any other purpose. | The Ameri- 
can English engaged i in the same traffic, and al- 
though the plant is a rare one in ‘the woods, yet 
very large quantities of the root were collected. 
In 1748, Kalm tells us the common price of the 
root at Quebec was from five to six livres a pound. 
The first shipments to China proved | extremely 
profitable to those concerned, especially to the 
French. In a short time, however, the amount 
exported | overstocked the market, the Chinese be- 
gan to think the American Ginseng inferior to 
the Tartarian, and its value depreciated, sO that it 
ceased to be an object _ of profitable commerce. 
Its demand has not materially risen at any subse- 
quent period, although it is still occasionally eX. 
ported. ‘The Chinese most. readily purchase the 
forked or branching roots ; and those exporters 
have been most ‘successful, who have prepared 
their Ginseng by clarifying it after the Chinese 
manner. _ 
The American Girone is thinly seatiored 
throughout the mountainous regions of the North- 
ern and Middle States. Kalm informs us, that it 
