Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
November,  1914.  J 
Medicinal  Plant  Gardens. 
507 
few  promising  ones  must  be  tried  out  on  an  area  large  enough  to 
yield  reliable  data  on  the  actual  conditions  of  commercial  produc- 
tion. A  considerable  acreage  of  land  is  indispensable  for  this  type 
of  garden  if  the  results  secured  therein  are  expected  to  have  much 
economic  significance. 
There  is  no  lack  of  evidence  that  the  general  public  often,  if 
not  as  a  rule,  fails  to  differentiate  the  functions  of  the  pedagogic 
and  industrial  gardens,  since  advice  is  freely  sought  from  both  re- 
garding the  production  of  medicinal  plants  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
deriving  profit  therefrom.  It  is  also  an  open  question  whether  this 
distinction  in  function  is  in  every  case  clearly  understood  by  those 
responsible  for  the  management  of  medicinal  plant  gardens.  State- 
ments sometimes  unguarded,  or  not  properly  qualified,  and  some- 
times based  upon  inconclusive  and  insufficient  data,  have  on  several 
occasions  inspired  the  imagination  of  writers  for  the  popular  maga- 
zines or  daily  press,  and,  as  a  result,  visions  of  large  and  easy  profits 
have  been  portrayed  under  various  alluring  titles,  as,  for  example, 
"  Big  Profit  from  Drug  Weeds,"  "  The  Herb  Grower  Has  a  Chance 
at  an  $18,000,000  Business,"  "  A'  Profit  of  One  Hundred  Dollars 
per  Acre  from  Growing  Medicinal  Weeds."  Moreover,  the  wide- 
spread interest  in  the  possibility  of  growing  medicinal  plants  for 
profit  which  has  been  developed  in  this  country  during  the  past 
decade  has  been  capitalized  by  a  number  of  crafty  promoters, 
who  use  the  mails  and  the  columns  of  journals  and  magazines  to 
disseminate  flamboyant  advertisements  of  the  enormous  profits 
which  may  be  made  by  growing  certain  medicinal  plants.  Frequently 
the  name  of  the  plant  is  withheld  until  the  victim  has  remitted  from 
one  to  five  dollars,  for  which  he  receives  practically  valueless  instruc- 
tions for  the  cultivation  of  some  plant  poorly  adapted  to  our  eco- 
nomic conditions.  A  typical  get-rich-quick  scheme  of  this  class  is 
explained  thus :  "It  has  to  do  with  a  certain  plant  which  grows 
like  a  weed ;  it  is  cut  and  cured  like  hay  and  sells  for  45  cents  per 
pound,  which  is  at  the  rate  of  $900  per  ton."  The  investment  of 
one  dollar  brings  the  name  of  the  herb,  with  the  further  information 
that  the  product  of  one  acre  will  sell  for  $1800!  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  commercial  cultivation  of  this  plant  is  almost  unknown 
in  the  United  States,  and  there  is  yet  no  established  market  for  the 
American  product. 
These  illustrations  will  account  for  the  doubt  which  has  arisen 
