No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 301 



there is no similarity between them. It is absurd to talk of culti- 

 vating or raising them in the ordinary use of those words. Gen- 

 erally, returns from them come only after several years, during 

 which time they must be cared for in peculiar ways and guarded 

 from special dangers. An intending grower should carefully inform 

 himself beforehand, as much so as one not a horseman should take 

 a course in horse training before he enters the field with veteran 

 jockeys. 



The value of nearly all medicinal plants is small, when one con- 

 siders the difficulties of production and the risks of handling. The 

 same amount of energy in other directions Avould be more profitable. 

 The most conspicuous example, ginseng, the writer has no faith in 

 whatever. It has no medicinal value. Its use is founded upon ig- 

 norance and superstition. Its cultivation is bolstered up by "pro- 

 moters," who are interested in selling roots and seeds at extrava- 

 gant prices. Intending cultivators will do well to read the history 

 of a somewhat i^arallel case, "The Multicaulis Craze," "The Evolu- 

 tion of our Native Fruits," by Bailey, page 141-158. 



Plants for name take, of course, a wide range. Most of them 

 have no economic value. As a general rule only meager fragments 

 are sent. One of the most interesting cases I ever had, from the 

 point of a mere detection or determination, consisted of a few dry 

 stems, perfectly bare, perhaps three or four inches long, and a mass 

 of comminuted fragments which could have all been held in a lady's 

 thimble. 



The lack of green leaves showed it a parasite; the presence of 

 seeds, a flowering plant; character of the seeds and the capsules in 

 which they were borne, a particular species, "beechdrops" (Epiphe- 

 gus Virginiana). Its unusual appearance suggested to the sender 

 a possible medicinal value, which it has not. 



There were several cases of plant diseases. The most marked 

 was of lettuce. This plant is raised in large quanities under cir- 

 cumstances which make it subject to several diseases which are 

 often so serious as to prevent its successful cultivation. While 

 these maladies are novv' well known to the plant pathologist, satis- 

 factory remedies for them are very difficult to find, and still more 

 difficult to employ. Since lettuce for table use should be clean and 

 crisp any stunting of growth or even slight leaf imperfection makes 

 it useless for market. Hence the most practicable remedy con- 

 sists in stim-ulating a rapid growth in the plant in the hope that it 

 will thereby be resistant to attack. Lettuce growers have by long 

 experience determined the best conditions of soil, temperature, w^at- 

 ering and light which the plant needs. Oftentimes their best 

 efforts are thwarted by an insiduous blight or rot against which 

 they are for the time being powerless. I believe that in many such 

 instances the best thing to do is to temporarily abandon lettuce 

 growing for a season or two, utilize the facilities for some other 

 crop, and then return to lettuce raising again after the soil and sur- 

 roundings have been freed from lettuce diseases. It will be the 

 cheapest and most satisfactory in the end. 



An interesting point was raised, whether barberry hedges are to 

 be condemned because of the known fact that they harbor and sup- 

 port one of the stages of wheat rust, a parasitic disease to which 

 wheat is subject. Since the life history of wheat rust is so thor- 



