88 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INDUSTRY. 



ginseng, concerning which the reader should turn up 

 the references given in the index. Every item possible 

 has been collected concerning this root ; not a single 

 one is in favor of it. If a warning be worth anything 

 to the individual grower, the author feels it his duty 

 to say very clearly and emphatically: leave Japanese 

 ginseng alone ; and to the dealer : do all in your power 

 to check the growing of this root. The individual will 

 be injured by it, but more important, the ginseng 

 industry in America will be put in jeopardy. 



ADULTERATION AND FRAUD 



The following quotation from the Somerset (Ky.) 

 Journal of October 19, 1900, and a similar thought in 

 Mr. Stanton's letters, meet the view of all prominent 

 growers of ginseng: "In our investigations of the 

 business of 'sang' culture, one thing especially im- 

 presses the writer, and that is that while the opportu- 

 nities for fraud and fake are golden, there is not the 

 slightest reason why a cultivator of the plant or a seller 

 of his product should ever resort to any sort of mis- 

 representation or fraud to profit in the business, as it 

 is amply remunerative without the aid of trickery of 

 any kind." 



But trickery is resorted to, and also statements of 

 a too lurid character. Concerning the adulteration of 

 the dried root the following extract from Bulletin 16 

 is given : 



"In the sale of ginseng in China various frauds are 

 perpetrated, consisting of the mixture of lower grades 

 with the higher and the substitution of other kinds of 

 roots. The Korean root, which ranks after the Man- 

 churian, constitutes the only available supply of native 

 root in the hands of traders. This root is frequently 

 sophisticated ; Japanese ginseng, which is itself often 

 adulterated with the roots of Campanula glauca, being 

 often found mixed with it. Other species of Campa- 



