CULTIVATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



733 



most plants by seedlings. Some plants are rather easily grown if 

 care is taken with their culture, as digitalis and belladonna. Other 

 plants, like hyoscyamus, are with some difficulty cultivated, and 

 very few persons, even seedsmen, are uniformly successful in 

 growing aconite. It should also be stated that there are a number 

 of plants yielding medicinal products which are grown from 

 seeds and require no more care than the usual garden plants. 

 Among these are calendula, Chrysanthemum roscum, echinacea, 



FIG. 404. Harvesting a unit test plot of first-year Digitalis. From the Experimental 

 Farm of Eli Lilly & Company, Indianapolis, Ind. 



and a number of others grouped under sweet, pot, and medicinal 

 herbs. 



PROPAGATION BY CUTTING. This is a common method of 

 propagating plants, being extensively employed by florists. A 

 cutting is a severed portion of a stem having one or more nodes 

 or buds. They are derived either from over-ground shoots, 

 as in carnation, rose, geranium, and coleus, or, where the plant 

 produces root-stocks or rhizomes, they are made from these rather 

 than from the over-ground shoots. Not all plants can be propa- 

 gated equally well from cuttings. Some plants are readily propa- 



