GINGHAM 



2495 



GINSENG 



Uses. As a spice, ginger is well known to 

 everyone from earliest childhood, through gin- 

 gerbread men and 

 ginger snaps. 

 And later we 

 meet it in that 

 home remedy, 

 ginger tea, or 

 candied, or in the 

 popular beverage, 

 ginger ale or gin- 

 ger beer. Ginger 

 wine is a cheap 

 liquor flavored 

 with ginger. The 

 oil of ginger is 

 used to lessen 

 pain. Its com- 

 monest use is in 

 seasoning a great 

 variety of foods. 



Wild Ginger, 

 found in the" 

 woods through- 



THE GINGER PLANT 



out the United States, is a low, woolly plant 

 with beautiful heart-shaped leaves, and one 

 dully-colored, bell-shaped blossom growing 

 close to the ground. A popular remedy for 

 measles and whooping cough is made from the 

 roots of this wild plant. 



GINGHAM, ging'am, originally a smooth, 

 close cotton fabric, woven of two colors of 

 plain-dyed yarns, into checkered, striped and 

 fancy patterns. A greater variety now appears 

 in ginghams than formerly, and they are also 

 woven of silk and cotton mixed, or of silk and 

 ramie. Ginghams were first made in India, but 

 now about 550,000,000 yards of gingham, val- 

 ued at $40,000,000, are manufactured yearly in 

 the United States alone an average of over 

 $130,000 worth each working day. 



Gingham differs from calico in that the col- 

 ors are woven with the fabric, not printed on 

 it, as is true of calico, so the cloth is alike on 

 both sides. The name is probably derived 

 from the Japanese word meaning perishable, 

 or fading. 



GINKGO, gingk'ko, the beautiful "maiden- 

 hair" tree, used so extensively for ornament. 

 It is a very hardy tree as far north as the lati- 

 tude of Massachusetts and sometimes grows to 

 a height of 100 feet, while the trunk reaches 

 a diameter of eight feet. Its leaves are fine, 

 like those on a maidenhair fern, from which 

 it received its popular name. In Washington, 

 D. C., several streets have been made very 



beautiful by the planting of many of these 

 trees. For centuries it has been cultivated in 

 Japan and China as a sacred tree in the groves 

 of the temples. The Chinese use the starch 

 kernel of the seed as a food, for it tastes much 

 like an almond. 



GINSENG, jin'seng, the light-yellow root of 

 a low, wild herb, prized by the Chinese as a 

 remedy for nearly all diseases. The plant, with 

 its three or five leaves and inconspicuous flow- 

 ers which change to scarlet berries, is found 

 in America from the valley of the Saint Law- 

 rence to the mountains of Georgia and west 

 to the Mississippi; it is also cultivated in 

 China. Some of the roots are shaped a little 

 in the likeness of a human being, and so the 

 name was derived from Chinese words which 

 mean likeness oj a man. Roots of such shape 

 bring high prices from the superstitious Chi- 

 nese. The plant is little used by Americans, 

 but when they learned of the demand for it 

 in China it became a valuable article of ex- 

 port, the price per pound rising from > 52 cents 

 to as high as $10. The supply of the wild root 

 becoming exhausted, the cultivation of ginseng 

 has been encouraged. 



Ginseng will thrive in a soil which is rather 

 loose, well drained and rich in humus, potash 

 and phosphoric acid, but not in nitrogen. 



GINSENG 



(a, a) Top and roots of mature plant; (6) 

 flower cluster and its parts. 



Since exposure to the full heat of the sun will 

 kill it, ginseng-growers who cultivate the plant 

 in the open protect their crop by erecting a 

 lattice-work covering. Posts six feet high are 

 placed along the beds at intervals of sixteen 



