12 PHARMACAL PLANTS AND THEIR CULTURE. 



ments. For example, if it is desired to begin the culture of digitalis, a 

 competent man should be sent to the digitalis fields of England, secure 

 employment as a laborer, and carefully record the cultural methods, 

 methods of curing, garbling, packing, shipping, marketing, etc. In the 

 course of a few months, or perhaps one season, he should be in a position 

 to give reliable and exact advice as to how to begin the successful 

 culture of English digitalis in California, and should be in position to 

 take charge of, and superintend, the field work, etc. As to what addi- 

 tional or new may be desirable in the way of methods, machinery, 

 devices, etc., must be determined by experience and inventive genius. 

 Similarly, the culture of camomile, chicory, and bittersweet should be 

 studied in Germany; licorice, saffron, squill, and belladonna culture in 

 Spain ; licorice and rheum culture in Turkey and Asia, etc. 



Following these suggestions would in the end prove most profitable. 

 Much may, of course, be learned from the several attempts that have 

 already been made in this country, particularly in California. For 

 example, hops, insect flower, chicory, canaigre, English mustard, calen- 

 dula, lavendula, tak oak, eucalyptus, rose (American Beauty), poppy, 

 cardamom, ginger, have been grown and marketed with more or less 

 success, to say nothing of the staple crops as onions, sugar-beets, oranges, 

 lemons, limes, olives, carob, asparagus, celery, Indian hemp (for fiber), 

 etc., and the native medicinal plants as cascara, yerba santa, yerba 

 buena, yerba mansa, berberis, manzanita, and others. Numerous gin- 

 seng gardens have been established within recent years in different parts 

 of the United States. 



Most of the medicinal plants, like most other economic plants, require 

 rich, well-tilled soil. Some thrive best in a moist, rich soil, as rhubarb, 

 belladonna, aconite, luffa, and colocynth, while others thrive better in a 

 rich, sandy, comparatively dry soil, as cacti, aloes, digitalis, and 

 mustard. Some require shade, as hydrastis, ginseng, May apple, wild 

 ginger, etc. Some require rich, somewhat marshy, soil, as the mints, 

 wild ginger, calamus, and iris. These are all data which must be care- 

 fully considered by those who are about to enter upon drug culture. 



It will be found that most of the plants recommended for cultivation 

 are herbs or herbaceous, either annuals, biennials, or perennials. In 

 the case of biennials it is, of course, necessary to wait two seasons for a 

 marketable crop, as with digitalis, whereas some perennials, as rhubarb 

 and ginseng, require a wait of three or four years before a crop can be 

 marketed. 



In conclusion, it is desired to call attention to the possibilities in 

 extending the range of successful plant culture, in many instances. 

 We need only recall the extension northward of the orange and lemon 

 culture in California. There is no doubt that many drug-yielding and 

 other plants of the tropics and sub-tropics, which are now considered 



