210 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. . 



Ginseng Troubles. 



A. 0. GILBERTSON. 



Anyone growing ginseng on a large scale surely has plenty 

 of trouble, even though he makes a fairly good success of the 

 business. 



Perhaps it would be of interest to the members of this asso- 

 ciation for me to give a general outline of what we have been 

 trying to do in the way of cutting down overhead expense in 

 connection with the growing of ginseng on an extensive scale. 



We have, at the present time, five and a half acres of gin- 

 seng under artificial arbors. We also have a tract of thirty-two 

 acres of natural timber that we have been working with, putting 

 it into condition for planting, and we have, at the present time, 

 growing on this timber tract, about twelve million plants of 

 different ages, the bulk of them being one- two- and three-year- 

 old plants. 



One of our main troubles in growing ginseng in the natural 

 shade has been the weed question, and to overcome this difficulty 

 we have found it the most economical to summer-fallow the tract 

 at least three years previous to the planting of the roots. In this 

 way we entirely do away with the expense of weeding even one 

 and two-year old seedlings. We also find that we save the 

 expense of preparing the beds for planting, as the continued 

 working of the soil in this way, for two or three years, leaves 

 the ground exceedingly mellow. Another advantage we have 

 found is that it retains the moisture a great deal better. 



After a great deal of experimenting to find some tool that 

 would work the ground satisfactorily, without coming in contact 

 with the roots of the trees, the writer hit upon the plan of cut- 

 ting down an ordinary pulverizer to the size of six disks. This 

 makes it possible, by using only one horse on the machine, to 

 work in between the trees, even though they are very close 

 together. Our plan is to go over the field twice, going crossways 

 the second time. We also have a special harrow, that we have 

 made, to follow up the disk. 



These four operations, two operations with the disk and 

 two operations with the drag or harrow, clean out perfectly all 

 the weeds, with the exception of a few, once in a while, next to 

 the trees. We go over the ground in this way six or seven times 

 during the season. 



In going over the ground, the first time or two with the 

 disk, we have a man follow up with a grub hoe, cutting out any 

 large roots that are near enough to the surface to interfere with 

 the disk. In this way we have been able to work up a perfect 

 seed bed at a very reasonable cost per acre. 



After having overcome the weed difficulty, our next trouble 

 was the transplanting of the plants. This we have found very 



