376 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



It will be remembered by many that the American Pharmaceutical 

 Association has requested the Commissioner of Agriculture to adopt 

 measures for the introduction into cultivation in this country such of 

 the foreign medicinal plants as we can grow. The object is to have 

 these plants as fresh as possible and at prices as low as possible. A 

 very large amount of money is annually sent out of the country for 

 these things and for drugs that are made from plants, which might be 

 saved if the plants were grown here. The commissioner says there is 

 no doubt the most important medicinal j)lants, as the rhubarb plant, 

 the licorice plant, arnica, belladona, digitalis, opium poppy, and many 

 others are perfectly adapted to our climate, and could be cultivated in 

 perfection, as we know with respect to some of them, from experi- 

 ments made many years ago. Some other semi-tropical products, as 

 ginger, cinchona, vanilla, jalep and sarsaparilla, may in all probability 

 be successfull}'- cultivated in the extreme southern portion of the 

 country, and it would seem well that means should be taken to give 

 such plants a proper trial. 



A new and powerful anfiesthetic remedy, prepared from the leaves 

 of a shrub called coca, or botanically Erj/throxylon coca, has been re- 

 cently introduced into medical and surgical practice. This shrub is a 

 native of Central and South America, and on account of the difficulty 

 of obtaining the leaves in a fresh and active state, it has been thought 

 highly desirable that the growth and cultivation of the plant should 

 be attempted in some locality within our borders. With respect to 

 our native medicinal plants and drugs, their collection and traffic have 

 been very greatly extended during the past decade, so that thousands 

 of people in different parts of the country, notably in the mountainous 

 regions of North Carolina, Tennessee, and in other southern and west- 

 ern States, are employed at certain seasons of the year in this enter- 

 prise. Fears are expressed that some of these plants are becoming 

 exterminated in their native habitats, and in respect to some of them — 

 as, for instance, the ginseng plant — the time has come when they may 

 probably be made the objects of profitable cultivation. — Rural World. 



