PHARMACAL PLANTS AND THEIR CULTURE. 



table drugs, to say nothing of the vegetable drugs of such countries as 

 China, India, Arabia, and Central America, which are awaiting our 

 careful study and investigation in order to determine their possible 

 therapeutic value. 



Many of our native medicinal plants require further study, and some 

 of the poisonous plants will no doubt prove very efficacious medicinally. 

 The therapeutic use of drugs, vegetable and others, is based largely 

 upon empiricism, and no one can state definitely what the future scien- 

 tific progress in medicine may develop. Recent bacteriological research 

 has completely revolutionized certain phases in the treatment of diseases, 

 and it is highly probable that in the future the method of application 

 and the therapeutic use of many drugs will be changed completely. It 

 is an obligative duty to study vegetable drugs as thoroughly as possible, 

 in order that the best results may follow their use in disease. 



The study of known and unknown medicinal plants would be greatly 

 advanced through experimental gardens, scientifically conducted. In 

 Europe such gardens have been established for centuries, and effective 

 efforts in this direction are now being made in various parts of the 

 United States. The Department of Agriculture has established experi- 

 mental gardens at Chico, Whittier, and Davis, in California, in which 

 are to be grown economic plants, including medicinal plants. A garden 

 of medicinal plants was established at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, 

 in which about five hundred species were under cultivation in 1904-05, 

 but owing to lack of funds the work has recently been discontinued. 

 Many medicinal plants are also grown in the University gardens at 

 Berkeley, California. Many foreign medicinal plants have been intro- 

 duced into California, and a number of private economic and pleasure 

 gardens are still in existence in various parts of the State. Gardens, 

 more or less pretentious, devoted to medicinal plants, are established at 

 New York (New York Botanical Garden), Philadelphia, and at the 

 Indiana State University. In addition, there are gardens of medicinal 

 plants operated in connection with the following colleges of pharmacy : 

 Scio College, Department of Pharmacy ; University of Michigan, School 

 of Pharmacy; Purdue University, School of Pharmacy; Brooklyn Col- 

 lege of Pharmacy, and St. Louis College of Pharmacy. These begin- 

 nings, when more fully developed on a cooperative basis, will be impor- 

 tant factors in perfecting our knowledge of the cultivation, constituents, 

 properties, and uses of the medicinal plants, native and introduced, of 

 the United States. 



2. Flora and Climatic Conditions of California. California is a 

 large, mountainous state, with extensive valleys, and has a wide lati- 

 tudinal and altitudinal range. Along the entire coast the temperature 

 is kept quite uniformly mild by the Pacific currents, there being only 



