MEDICINAL HERBS : CULTIVATION AND PREPARATION. 139 
wild plant occurs in two forms, and has been found wild in sixty 
British counties, or rather twice the number of counties that Bella- 
donna occurs in, and yet it always exceeds the latter in price, because 
it nowhere occurs profusely, and is found under circumstances that 
appear at first sight to be quite contradictory, growing in some places 
on sandy spots near the sea, in others on chalky slopes, and in culti- 
vation flourishes in a good loam. When sown, the seed sometimes 
comes up quickly and flowers the first year, when only a few inches 
high, especially in a dry spring and summer. In other cases it 
produces only large leaves, in the autumn, often more than a foot long, 
and the second year sends up a large branched flowering stem, but 
sometimes the whole of the foliage is destroyed by the larvae of a 
leaf-mining fly, Pegomyia hyoscyami, and the crop rendered worthless 
in a week. But sometimes the seed will not germinate the first year, 
or even the second, and when the field has been ploughed, and some 
other crop sown, up it comes. A curious case occurred some years 
ago at Weymouth, showing that the seed in certain circumstances 
may retain its vitality for a very long period. A house on the Parade, 
which had been built 100 years, was pulled down, and next year there 
appeared on the cleared building-ground numbers of Henbane plants, 
although this plant does not occur in the neighbourhood within many 
miles of the spot. Even if Henbane seed comes up strongly the first 
year, when the large autumnal leaves decay away the large terminal 
bud is often destroyed by one of the many macro -lepidopterous cater- 
pillars that, like the Agrotids, hide themselves in the soil ; or floods 
may rot the plants in winter if grown on level ground. 
It would probably pay well to cultivate Henbane in sandy ground 
near the sea, especially on rich estuarine soil, or in sandy ground in 
such places as the Golf Links at Westward Ho or Dawlish Warren, 
where the seaweed could be used as manure and there is sufficient 
moisture at a depth of two feet for the roots to reach it. It obviously 
is therefore not a plant for profitable cultivation in small gardens, 
especially as the yield of dried leaf is extremely small. 
Cultivation. 
The actual cultivation of medicinal plants can only be carried out 
properly on a fairly large scale under present conditions. To the 
ordinary grower the first year's outlay brings in practically no return, 
so that sufficient capital is required to meet the outgoing expenses in 
labour, manure, and rental for that year, and for the second also 
if the crop fails from any cause. There is also the initial expense to be 
considered of apparatus for drying herbs, and the difficulty of getting 
labour, when wanted, unless it is employed all the year round. 
So far as I have been able to judge, the cultivation of the most 
important medicinal plants in this country only pays well when there 
is sufficient capital to run a pharmaceutical manufactory close to it 
so as to utilize the fresh plants in years when the crops are more than 
