By 1902 the export price of ginseng was $5.25 
cents per pound dry, the cultivated being so much 
larger and more vigerous the exporters paid 20% 
more for it but the users said no and soon after 
the cultivated brought 20% less than the forced, 
pampered, over grown and usually immature, so 
called cultivated. 
Both Encyclopedia Americana (Vol. 9) and 
Penny Encyclopedia (Vol. 11 printed in 1835) are 
accountable for the statements that ginseng is used 
in China for almost every ill, and that man shaped 
roots frequently command their weight in gold. 
Practically every crop of ginseng before it 
reaches the consumer is sorted into a dozen or more 
grades, depending on age, size, outside color, inside 
color, wrinkles lengthwise or around, textuie, spaci- 
fic gravity, taste, etc. and nearly every city or local¬ 
ity prefer or demand some particular one of these 
grades, all of which makes it difficult to sell except 
thru the regular trade channels. 
Nearly every dealer in raw furs, wool and hides 
in the United States are dealers in ginseng and 
many New York dealers will send a buyer hun¬ 
dreds of miles to bid on two or three barrels full. 
There is no record of any American or Euro¬ 
pean scientific investigation to determine whether 
or not 400,000,000 Chinese have or have not been 
all wrong in their faith in ginseng for several cen¬ 
turies but the fact remains that Chinese scientists, 
Doctors, etc., that have been educated in America 
and Europe, have never said or done anything that 
has injured ihe ginseng business. 
What must the Chinese think of the millions 
ocidentials who repeatedly try to rub liniment thiu 
the cuticle in the belief it can really be done and 
somehow neutralize or relieve their rheumatism 
or neuritis, etc., something both impossible and un¬ 
scientific and yet so often tried. 
It is no more difficult to raise a garden size 
patch of ginseng than it is to raise a vegetable 
garden, not nearly so much work because ginseng 
must be raised under the shade of trees, vines or 
artificial shade made of cull lath, lumber edgings, 
brush or reeds or even hay thatch as is practiced in 
Manchuria, it grows best under some sort of vege¬ 
table mulch like decayed sawdust, leaves, chaff, 
straw, or perhaps best of all is marsh hay because 
free of weed seeds. With any crop grown under 
shade and mulch there need be little fear of weeds 
as is the case with vegetable gardens, this is par¬ 
ticularly true if the ground has been previously 
summer fallowed. 
Excepting the shade requirement ginseng will 
grow and thrive under the same moisture and soil 
condition required for garden vegetables. 
The IDEAL conditions would be a rich, black, 
sandyloam, with considerable humus, no barnyard 
or commercial fertilizer except perhaps some phos¬ 
phoric acid if other crops indicate a deficiency in 
that element. Ideal moisture conditions would be 
such as found under thick leaf mulch beside an old 
log, moist but not wet, iginseng can not stand wet 
feet, the ground must be well drained and yet gin¬ 
seng is not particularly drouth resisting. 
Ginseng will attain at least twice the size under 
artificial, shade, compared to that grown under 
natural shade where it has to compete with trees or 
vines for plant food and moisture, but roots grown 
under natural shade usually bring considerable 
mere per pound. 
If artificial shade is used the lath or lumber 
edgings must run north and south so there will 
be an ever changing sunshine and shade, about one 
fourth sunshine, three fourths shade, the farther 
south the more shade. Good air drainage is desir¬ 
able, tight fences objectionable. 
The more sunshine given the plants without 
using enough to kill them the larger the root 
growth. 
If one can provide both artificial and natural 
shade a good plan would be to grow under artificial 
shade two years or until the roots are about a half 
Inch diameter, then transplant in the timber, where 
the ginseng would have to compete with the tree 
and vine roots and given a stunted, starved, matur¬ 
ed. appearance making it resemble the wild. 
If a large planting is to be done it is usually 
better to do the work in the fall shortly before 
freezing weather, when the weather is usually fav¬ 
orable for many days or even weeks but if only a 
few pounds are to be planted it is just as well to 
leave the seeds in the care of seme one exper¬ 
ienced until the frost has left the ground in the 
spring, the seed will then germinate at once and 
soon show a patch of ground one may well expect 
to be proud of in the future. 
