52 DISEASES OF GINSENG. 



PART in. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

 DISEASES OF GINSENG. 

 Ginseng, as well as all other plants, has its enemies. 

 The pioneer growers of ginseng at first thought they had found a 

 ''Bonanza''. Here was a plant that seemed easily grown, required 

 Httle attention after it was once planted, was apparently free from 

 all the diseases to which cultivated plants are heir, and was besides 

 extremely valuable. Their first few crops bore out this supposi- 

 tion. No wonder, a "Ginseng craze" broke out and men sat 

 up niglits to figure out on paper the vast fortunes that were bound 

 to accrue to those who planted a few hundred seeds at three to 

 five cents each and sold the roots in five years at $12.00 a pound. 

 Like many other grow-rich-while-wait schemes, nature imposed 

 a veto. Diseases began to appear, and the prospective fortune 

 shrunk, — frequently dried up and blew away, or rotted and disap- 

 peared in the earth. 



Several factors contributed to the increased prevalence of 

 disease. 



1. The removal of a wild plant from its natural habitat to 

 an entirely artificial one. 



2. The encouragement by the application of manures and 

 cultivation to a rapidity of growth to which the plant was by in- 

 heritance an entire stranger, thus weakening its constitution and 

 depriving it of its natural ability to withstand disease. Cultivated 



