PLANTING BELLADONNA SEEDLINGS AT THE RATE OF SIXTY TO THE MINUTE 



These are planted at the rate of sixty to the minute. Belladonna and digitaHs have to be 

 propagated in a greenhouse during the winter in order that the plants, when set out, will be 

 large enough to cope with the ravages of insects and crowding out by weeds. (Fig. 16.) 



been circulated on the subject. Stocks 

 of many crude drugs have been ex- 

 hausted, and the cultivation of medici- 

 nal plants has not as yet assumed any 

 great proportions in the United States. 

 Those drugs which were obtained from 

 Europe were not cultivated, but grew 

 wild there. It was therefore a simple 

 matter to have them gathered and pre- 

 pared for market at comparatively 

 small cost. The cultivation of medicinal 

 plants in the United States requires ex- 

 pert labor, the production of artificial 

 conditions of soil and moisture in order 

 to provide as nearly as possible the con- 

 ditions under which the plants grow in 

 their native habitat, and considerable 

 investment of money. Drug plants have 

 been raised on an experimental scale 

 by the Government and in the drug 



36 



gardens of various colleges, but it is a 

 very different undertaking to raise them 

 on a commercial scale. American grow- 

 ers of crude drugs were confronted with 

 the necessity of increasing the value of 

 the plants in order to overcome the 

 high cost of cultivation. It was soon 

 found that cross-pollination would not 

 produce plants containing more active 

 constituents than they do normally, but 

 by careful selection of seed it has been 

 possible to increase the amount of ac- 

 tive constituents in such plants as bella- 

 donna, digitalis, etc., to three or four 

 times what the Pharmacopoeia requires. 

 Furthermore, advanced methods of har- 

 vesting these plants have made it pos- 

 sible to secure three or four harvestings 

 in one season, whereas in former years 

 one or two was the limit." 



