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. 1 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). 
