STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 61 



sang brought $1 a pound. In 1883 dry sang was $1.80; this 

 year it was from $1.40 to -fl.GO. As far as cultivating it is con- 

 cerned, I have experimented some on that. I would say that it 

 can be propagated, but not cultivated. You can gather the seed 

 and sow it in its native bed, that is, in the forest among maple 

 timber, and propagate it, but you must have a fence that a deer 

 cannot jump over to keep the sang diggers out of it, or you will 

 not have any j)roceeds. You can take a full grown root of the 

 sang and set it out in a cultivated bed in the sun, and inside of 

 one month it will have gone to seed — that is, the leaf will be dead 

 and the root and everything will be dried up. You cannot cul- 

 tivate it in the sun; that is my experience. 



Mr. Smith. Does it seed pretty well? 



Mr. Whipple. Well, not very well; and at the present time 

 it is hard to find stalks old enough to have seed. 



Mr. Smith. Do you know how old it has to be to have seed? 

 Is it a perennial or annual! 



Mr. Whipple. It begins to seed when two or three years old, 

 but the most of it is dug out at the present time the first or 

 second year from the seed. 



Mr. Peterson, of Waconia. In 1858 I planted a handful of 

 ginseng in a bed, and I have dug a good deal of it in the woods, 

 but if it is not shaded it will not grow. I think myself that it 

 should be cultivated, and that ought to be done in the woods, not 

 where the woods are too thick. May be it could be raised there 

 but not out in the open field. 



Caj)t. Blakeley. I would like to ask Mr. Whipple what chaj'- 

 acter of timber he gathered sang among in the Big Woods and 

 on what kind of soil ! 



Mr. Whipple. Well, on a clay soil; generally maple and oak 

 is the best. 



Mr. Peterson. Where it is maple it is generally the best. 



Mr. Charles Kenning, of Bird Island. Mr. President, in 1857 

 I experimented somewhat. I tried to propagate by root plants 

 and by seed in a garden patch but did not succeed. In the woods 

 I could raise scraggy ginseng, but never could as a native plant 

 in a bed, and I soon quit it altogether. Us boys, at that time, 

 were allowed the proceeds of our digging. We tried to propa- 

 gate it and failed, and I doubt if we can raise the root at all by 

 field culture. 



Mr. Smith. It is possible that we could if we were to try it in 

 the right way. You cannot raise the fir, the pine and the spruce 



