DRUG PLANTS 149 



Canada fleabane brings from six to eight cents per pound. 



Of jimsonweed, leaves are imported, from 100,000 to 

 150,000 pounds annually, and 10,000 pounds of seed. Leaves 

 bring two and one half to eight cents per pound, and seeds 

 from three to seven cents per pound. 



Of poison hemlock, seeds are imported from ten to twenty 

 thousand pounds annually. Price for the seed is three cents 

 per pound, for the leaves about four cents. The flowers 

 are also used. 



The American wormseed has been naturalized from tropi- 

 cal America to New England ; the seed commands from six 

 to eight cents per pound ; the oil distilled from this seed brings 

 one dollar and a half per pound. 



Black mustard, which is a troublesome weed in almost 

 every state in the Union, is nevertheless imported in enor- 

 mous quantities, the total imports of the seeds of the black 

 and white mustard amounting annually to over five million 

 pounds, the prices being from three to six cents per pound. 

 All these prices and quantities were before the war and may 

 greatly change after it. 



In studying the wild drug plants, one may learn the im- 

 mense variety of field salads and greens. On a visit to the 

 Spirit Fruit Society at Ingleside, Illinois, one of the girls took 

 me out to gather wild vegetables for dinner. We pulled up 

 about a dozen varieties out of the corners of a field ; two or 

 three of the nice looking ones that I gathered the young lady 

 threw out, saying she did not know them ; but it seemed to me 

 that she took almost anything that was not too tough. The 

 following are commonly used as salads : Dandelion, yellow 

 racket, purslane (pusley), watercress, nasturtium; and the 

 following as greens for cooking : narrow or sour dock, stinging 

 nettle, pokeweed, pigweed or lamb's quarters, black mustard. 



