PREFACE. 



During recent years, the news has been spread far 

 and wide by the press that the consumption of ginseng 

 in China is enormous ; that our native forest supply is 

 rapidly decreasing ; that the price paid by our dealers is 

 steadily advancing; that the plant can be cultivated, 

 and that there is a considerable margin of profit in grow- 

 ing it. As a result, the agricultural papers, the Exper- 

 iment Stations and the Department of Agriculture have 

 been besieged with questions bearing upon all phases of 

 ginseng cultivation, and many useful articles in addition 

 to three bulletins have been prepared upon the subject. 

 But, since the former, in addition to being too brief to 

 be more than outlines or introductions, are unavailable 

 to the majority of would-be cultivators, and since the 

 latter contain much that does not interest the novice, 

 the writer has prepared the following pages to be used 

 as a practical working manual in the growing of 

 this crop. 



In its preparation, use has been made of some of the 

 articles contained in -agricultural journals, the United 

 States Consular Reports, the bulletins published by the 

 Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the Exper- 

 iment Station of Kentucky. But the author has relied 

 mainly upon his report to the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, which was prepared for the Divi- 

 sion of Botany in the summer of 1897 and published as 

 the revised edition of Bulletin No. 16 of tfhat division, 

 the original issue and its reprints having been exhausted. 



iii 



1*1 i&lT 



