MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. IGO 



Furthermore, were we dependent upon the native cinchona tree of South 

 America for our source of supply of quinine, this allialoid would be not only 

 of prohibitive price, but so rare as to mal^e it a museum specimen. This 

 would be a dire calamity, as quinine is one of tlie alkaloids tliat would be 

 exceedingly difficult for us to make synthetically at a fairly reasonable price. 

 All of the commercial cinchona is obtained from trees cultivated in the East 

 Indies, Britisli Indies, Mexico and Northwest Africa, and there is just a possi- 

 bility that it might be cultivated in certain parts of California. The coffee 

 tree, originally of Abyssinia, and at one time almost solely cultivated in the 

 East Indies, is now an important article of export from South America, Brazil 

 sending us not less than 000,000 tons annually. The spice trade, originally 

 confined to the Dutcli East Indies, has been extended to the West Indies and 

 other tropical countries. Until the last edition of the United States Pharma- 

 copoeia (1916), Cannabis Indica was derived solely from plants cultivated in 

 India. Tlie Indian government placed an export duty upon this product, and 

 in a remarkably short time we were importing a high-grade drug from Africa, 

 Asia Minor, Turkestan, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and almost simulta- 

 neously we found that we could grow an exceptionally active drug in the 

 United States. 



During the past summer, at the Botanic Gardens of the University of 

 Michigan, there were grown about fifty different medicinal plants, and while 

 one year ago no one could have prophesied what the returns might be, yet they 

 all grew abundantly, the drugs obtained from them being in some instances 

 of an unusually high grade. Many drug-yielding plants are used also in other 

 industries, and often in greater quantities than in their medicinal use. For 

 instance, some of 'these, as Cannabis, furnish stems which are of considerable 

 value, yielding, as you know, the hemp fiber. The "braking of the hemp" was 

 at one time practiced in Michigan, and there is apparently no reason why the 

 product here should not be equal in quality and value to that product in 

 Kentucky. Again, there are the poppy capsules, which yield an abundance 

 of an oily seed used in baking. The lavender flowers and marigold plants can 

 be made into a fragrant pot-pouri, etc. The results of these experiments, 

 begun last summer, have caused us to view this work in its broader aspects 

 and have widened the scope of our investigations, as indicated in the title of 

 this paper. 



The conditions in Michigan seems to show that we enjoy a very produc- 

 tive climate, and this, taken in conjunction willi what has been done, would 

 seem to indicate that we enjoy certain natural advantages which justify more 

 experimentation and operation on even a greater scale. It is interesting to 

 run over some of the statistics from the United States Census for 1910 on the 

 vjjlue of raw products obtained from Michigan: 



