As™ptJembef,bi9oa"}    Early  Botanical  and  Herb  Gardens.  427 
years  it  was  confined  almost  exclusively  to  this  one  section  of 
New  York  State,  and  Wayne  County  oil  of  peppermint  was  long 
considered  to  be  synonymous  for  all  of  the  oil  of  peppermint  pro- 
duced in  this  country.  The  cultivation  of  the  peppermint  plant 
was  subsequently  introduced  into  Ohio,  and  about  1835  the  first 
experiments  in  peppermint  culture,  on  a  large  scale,  were  made  in 
Michigan.  The  latter  State  soon  led  in  the  quantity,  if  not  the 
quality,  of  its  output  and  is  even  to-day  considered  to  be  the  chief 
source  of  American  oil  of  peppermint. 
Of  the  more  strictly  native  plants  the  cultivation  of  ginseng  early 
attracted  attention.  Experiments  in  the  cultivation  of  ginseng  are 
known  to  have  been  conducted  by  American  as  well  as  foreign 
botanists  and  gardeners,  and  there  is  direct  evidence  that  John  Bar- 
tram,  Peter  Collinson  and  D.  Fothergill  all  devoted  considerable 
time  and  study  to  the  growth  of  ginseng. 
In  Ewell's  Medical  Companion  there  is  a  record  that  a  Dr. 
Thornton  is  said  to  have  been  particularly  successful  in  the  cultiva- 
tion of  ginseng  on  a  farm  near  Washington,  D.  C,  as  early  as  18 15. 
The  particular  interest  that  attaches  itself  to  this  plant  is  of  course 
the  relatively  high  price,  and  this  with  the  perhaps  slightly  over- 
drawn advertisements  of  modern  ginseng  growers  is  no  doubt  the 
direct  cause  of  the  present-day  revival  of  interest  in  this  evidently 
inert  drug. 
The  general  revival  of  interest  in  the  cultivation  of  medicinal 
plants  is,  however,  due  to  other  causes,  largely,  at  least,  economic, 
and  the  direct  outcome  of  the  ever  widening  area  of  land  that  is 
being  brought  under  cultivation,  the  disappearance  of  our  forests  and 
the  accompanying  difficulty  of  securing  the  native  medicinal  plants 
that  are  largely  restricted  to  wooded  areas. 
The  scarcity  of  drugs  such  as  hydrastis,  senega,  and  serpentaria, 
has  resulted  in  an  accompanying  increase  in  price  depending  on  the 
popularity  and  use  of  these  drugs. 
The  increase  in  the  price  of  these  drugs  and  their  growing  scarc- 
ity has  attracted  the  attention  of  botanists  and  drug  brokers,  and 
largely  through  the  frequent  inquiries  that  have  been  made  regard- 
ing future  supplies  of  these  drugs  the  Agricultural  Department  has 
been  induced  to  take  up  the  study  of  the  several  plants  with  a  view 
of  leading  up  to  the  cultivation  of  them  on  a  commercial  scale. 
