GINSENG 
(MEANING MAN ROOT) 
Ginseng is a medicinal plant, the roots of which 
are prized highly by the Chinese and have been 
used by them for centuries. American ginseng close¬ 
ly resembles the Chinese and Manchurian varieties 
was first discovered near Montreal in 1716 and 
immediately a brisk trade sprang up. Ginseng or¬ 
iginally grew wild in most of the woodlands all the 
way from the valley of the St. Lawrence to the 
mountains of Georgia and west to the Mississippi 
river. Cultivated ginseng grows even better in 
the Pacific states than in its original territory. 
In Encyclopedia Americana under “advertis¬ 
ing” is reproduced a full page of The Daily Adver¬ 
tiser, dated New York March 7, 1795 in which a 
display advertisement of ginseng is found. 
The first export statistics available are for 1858 
when 366053 pounds were sent to China valued at 
52 cents per pound. 
In the early pioneer days ginseng was a God¬ 
send that kept many in clothes and other necessities 
if not from starvation. Ginseng hunting was pur¬ 
sued so vigorously it was threatened with extinc¬ 
tion and attempts were made to bring it under cul¬ 
tivation but all attempts were failures until Geo. 
Stanton of Apula, N. Y. in 1885 discovered that the 
seeds must never be allowed to become dry and 
even under moist conditions it required 18 months 
before they would germinate. The price of roots 
had increased rapidly as the supply lessened and 
everyone who could pay the ridiculously high prices 
asked for the seed, tried to raise ginseng, but knew 
so little about its requirements mostly failed. 
