PHARMACAL PLANTS AND THEIR CULTURE. 41 



serve as a foundation regarding the particular drug plant you may 

 desire to cultivate. 



Don't begin on a large or commercial scale until the preliminary 

 details have been worked out to a satisfactory conclusion. Of course, 

 opportunities for further experimenting will always exist, as the abso- 

 lutely perfect will never be reached. During this experimental period 

 surprises and disappointments will come thick and fast. The disap- 

 pointments will appertain very largely to the great alterations required 

 in the theoretical drug plant culture. Where you hoped to realize some 

 $2,000 or more at the end of the first or second year, you will, in all 

 probability, find that you lost that amount instead, but you will have 

 gained wonderfully in experience, and this experience is a personal 

 asset which can not be taken from you by any one. 



2. Commercial Phase. Based upon the purely experimental phase, 

 you are now ready to exter upon the commercial phase. That is the 

 work (still of an experimental nature) now carried on on a scale suffi- 

 ciently large to prevent a financial loss, even if there may be no marked 

 gain. It would be useless to enter upon details, as these will be fully 

 known by the time you have completed the experiments. 



Certain cultural enterprises can not be undertaken successfully by 

 individuals, because of the necessary financial outlay which they entail. 

 These should be undertaken by the State or by the Federal Govern- 

 ment, or perhaps by wealthy individuals or corporations. The intro- 

 duction of cinchonas into India by the British Government, and into 

 Java by the Dutch Government, cost these nations large sums of 

 money. There is little doubt that cinchonas could be grown in portions 

 of California, as, for example, in the immediate coast region, from 

 Santa Barbara southward. Irrigation would be necessary. A half- 

 hearted attempt was made by the Department of Agriculture of the 

 University of California in 1887. * The matter was again urged by the 

 writer in 1905, 2 but thus far no one has appeared who is willing to 

 invest the money necessary to properly attempt the introduction of 

 cinchonas into California. 



Camphor trees thrive exceedingly well in California, having escaped 

 from cultivation in places. To grow a camphor tree forest, suitable 

 for the production of camphor on a profitable commercial scale, would 

 no doubt require an outlay of money far beyond the pocketbook of 

 the average individual. 



Pilocarpus apparently thrives in the southern coast regions of the 

 State. Attempts to introduce this plant should be carried out much 

 as for cinchona. 



'Univ. Calif., Coll. Agr. Reports for 1887. 



2 The cultivation of Cinchonas on the Pacific Coast, Druggists' Circular, 40 ; pp. 426- 

 430 (December, 1905). 



