Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
April,  1900.  / 
Lands  Where  Drugs  Grow. 
159 
The  reasons  for  these  conditions  are  various.  Drug  gathering  is 
at  present  not  like  the  cultivation  of  cotton,  corn,  wheat  and  food- 
stuffs, a  settled  industry ;  it  is  controlled  by  factors,  small  and  large 
buyers,  who  seem  to  take  good  care  to  keep  it  within  very  narrow 
limits.1  The  main  producer — the  small  peasant  gatherer — is  quite 
likely  to  be  a  very  insignificant  person  who  knows  but  little,  whose 
desires  are  small,  to  whom  a  minute  fraction  of  this  world's  goods 
brings  content.  If  he  or  his  family  gather  a  hundredweight  of 
drugs  in  a  year  he  has  only  one  market,  and  is  satisfied  to  take 
whatever  price  may  be  offered  him.  These  last  observations  do 
not  altogether  apply  to  such  plants  as  yield  essential  oils,  etc.,  or 
those  which  enter  largely  into  other  arts  than  medicine.  Again,  we 
may  note  some  prominent  exceptions  in  the  case  of  certain  very 
intelligent  English  and  German  producers,  and  of  a  few  English 
chemists  or  German  apothecaries  who  pursue  this  industry  in  a 
most  painstaking  manner  in  very  remote  and  lonely  regions. 
We  also  see  a  ray  of  promise  in  the  fact  that  in  certain  cities  of 
the  Continent  there  are  being  established  sewage  farms,  on  some 
of  which  medicinal-plant  growing  is  in  an  experimental  stage. 
A  visit  to  an  English  drug  farm,  or  a  stroll  through  the  regions 
where  the  plants  grow  wild,  is  a  delightful  change  from  the  smoky 
British  city,  and  a  wholesome  relief  from  the  pent-up  shop  and 
laboratory. 
The  roads,  or  rather  the  lanes,  lead  through  woodlands,  peaceful 
valleys,  past  quaint  old  ivy-covered  stone  houses,  pretty  commons  and 
village  greens.  As  we  pass  along  peering  over  the  hedges,  white  and 
red  poppies  appear  ;  here  and  there  a  patch  of  lavender  and  mint ; 
lactucarium  almost  everywhere.  Under  old  hedges,  at  the  stump  of 
trees,  especially  in  an  abandoned  chalk  pit,  belladonna  grows 
luxurious  and  rank.  In  woods  of  almost  impenetrable  darkness^ 
hyoscyamus,  hellebore  and  atropa  abound. 
The  man  who  will  botanize  on  his  mother's  grave  has  been  called 
a  wretch,  but  drug  plants  seem  to  thrive  best  in  the  most  sacred 
and  historic  spots  of  England.  Given  an  abbey  ruins,  the  remains 
of  a  Roman  or  other  ancient  fortress  covered  with  the  decay  of 
1An  example  somewhat  notable  is  the  recent  "corner"  in  orris  root,  of 
which  the  zone  of  possible  cultivation  is  very  large.  In  the  face  of  an  appar- 
ently large  crop,  a  few  factors  have  been  able  to  surround  the  entire  source  of 
supply,  to  send  prices  skyward  and  shut  out  all  comers  for  some  years  to  come. 
