Cushman: Growing Medicinal Plants in America 



35 



are made a matter of almost daily bar- 

 ter and sale, the manifold uses of which 

 constitute some of the mysteries of our 

 enormous patent medicine industry. 

 There are warehouses in the heart of 

 New York City filled with great bales 

 of things familiar to our childhood 

 days : cornsilk, daisy tops, red clover 

 tops, laurel leaves, skunk cabbage, flag- 

 root, burdock, dandelion, gentian, lily- 

 of-the-valley, wintergreen, and many 

 another of our old friends of the fields 

 and woods. The inquirer might also 

 be surprised to learn that these familiar 

 things command a price varying from 

 cents to dollars per pound and he might 

 even solemnly determine to turn his 

 newly acquired knowledge to profitable 

 purposes and forthwith embark in the 

 combination of business and pleasure 

 of producing and purveying herbs and 

 simples. Unfortunately, however, for 

 this laudable ambition, it would soon 

 become apparent that the labor in- 

 volved, for instance, in gathering two 

 bales of green corn silk or something 

 else which shrinks to one bale on drying 

 is quite inadequately paid for by the 

 prices offered by the stony-hearted buy- 

 ers in the New York market. In fact, 

 it would probably be learned that, al- 

 though America produces more corn 

 silk or something else than all of the 

 rest of the world together,' from time 

 out of mind the baled corn silk or some- 

 thing else has been imported from 

 overseas, where child-labor laws are 

 unknown and where people's wives, 

 mothers, and grandmothers are more 

 interested in acquiring a few extra 

 pennies a day by working in the fields 

 than they are in acquiring a vote. 



Seriously speaking, the production of 

 medicinal herbs in America depends 

 very largely on the labor cost, and can 

 be made a profitable enterprise only 

 when it is conducted on a scientific 

 basis and on a sufficiently large scale 

 to absorb the high cost of the labor 

 involved in the tilling, planting, cultivat- 

 ing, harvesting, curing, and packing 

 operations. At the same time, the drug 



grower faces a most uncertain and pre- 

 carious market for his wares, for, al- 

 though his drug plants are needed, the 

 need is strictly limited, and the slightest 

 overproduction is either entirely unsal- 

 able or salable at a price less than the 

 cost of production. 



A well-known authority on drug 

 growing. Mr. H. C. Fuller, has recently 

 said in efifect : "The cultivation and 

 marketing of drugs must be done under 

 an entirely different set of conditions 

 than those obtaining in the growing and 

 selling of vegetables. Much that has 

 been published on the subject is mis- 

 leading, and the idea that the ordinary 

 farmer can successfully grow drug 

 plants and produce a marketable article 

 is ridiculous. It can be confidently as- 

 serted that if the ordinary farmer 

 should undertake the growing of drug 

 plants it would result in failure to him 

 as well as discredit to the efforts of 

 those who are specializing in the 

 subject." 



Dr. W. W. Stockberger, the expert 

 of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, in charge of drug and 

 poisonous plant investigations, expresses 

 the same fact is the following words :" 



"If medicinal plant cultivation is to 

 succeed in this country it must be placed 

 on a sound commercial basis, and there 

 are good reasons for believing that this 

 end will not be attained by encouraging 

 a large number of persons to engage in 

 drug growing on a small scale." . . . 

 "If the drug manufacturer is to become 

 permanently interested in medicinal 

 plants produced in this country he must 

 be assured of a fairly large and depend- 

 able source of supply. For this reliance 

 must be placed upon well-equipped 

 growers who have sufficient capital to 

 carry on the enterprise eftectively." 



Still another writer on this subject 

 has recently published the following 

 comments :^ "In the strictly pharma- 

 ceutical field the shortage of crude 

 drugs has been felt more or less keenly 

 since 1914. and much misinformation 

 and little information of value have 



-The Druggists' Circular, January 18, p. 5; ibid., March 18, p. 106. 

 ^Journal Franklin Institute, vol. 185. No. 3, p. 435. 



