Physical and Chemical Papers. Ill 



plant grows luxuriantly in Kansas, as it is recognized on most 

 of our common roadsides. Since stramonium furnishes the 

 narcotic alkaloids closely allied to hyoscine and atropine, there 

 is no reason why this plant should not be utilized to a greater 

 extent than it is, and some enterprising firm should bring 

 about its commercialism and utilization as alkaloidal products. 

 Now is the psychological moment, so to speak, to bring about 

 this desired end — to show that the United States is a place and 

 has a soil suitable for the raising of some of our vegetable 

 medicinal substances. 



We may cite some interesting cases of profitable medicinal 

 plant culture. In certain sections of the country near Lebanon, 

 Pa., among the people who are known as the Shakers, there 

 has been for years the cultivation of such plants as conium, 

 lobelia, and many of the drugs used in the eclectic practice. 

 In Michigan, in the low, marshy and boggy part of the country, 

 hundreds of acres are under cultivation in raising the plants 

 of the natural order of Labiatae. The writer visited one of 

 these farms last summer ; in fact, has visited the same one for 

 a number of summers. It contains 1400 acres of land entirely 

 devoted to the cultivation of peppermint and spearmint. This 

 farm is located near Fenville, Mich., and another one, of 2100 

 acres, is located near Kalamazoo, Mich. These two farms 

 produce thousands of pounds of peppermint and have grown 

 into a stupendous industry, employing hundreds of men dur- 

 ing the summer and a very large number during the winter 

 months, when the farm has to be taken care of and repairs 

 made to the machinery used for the distillation of the plant 

 in order to obtain the volatile oil. 



One of the most expensive, and possibly one of the most 

 profitable, plant industries that could be promoted in the 

 United States is the cultivation of goldenseal (Hijcb-astic cana- 

 densis). This drug brings on the market $4.75 per pound; 

 pressed leaves, $7.35 per pound. The cultivation of the plant 

 at the present time has not gone far beyond the experimental 

 stage. Fifteen or twenty years ago the supply of the wild 

 plants was sufficient to maintain the consumption, but during 

 the last ten years the demand has been so great as to almost 

 exhaust our fields and forests where the plant finds a natural 

 habitat. It is interesting to know that some have cultivated 

 the Hydrastis successfully. John O. Baldwin contributes an 



