
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 orig- 
inally 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 “advertising” 
is reproduced a full page of The Daily Advertiser, 
dated New York, March 7, 1795, in which a display 
advertisement of ginseng is found. 
The first export statistics available are for 1858 
when 366,053 pounds were sent to China valued at 
52 cents per pound. 
In the early pioneer days ginseng was a Godsend 
that kept many in clothes and other necessities if 
not from starvation. Ginseng hunting was pursued 
so vigorously it was threatened with extinction and 
attempts were made to bring it under cultivation, 
but all attempts were failures until George 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. 
