866 
Growing  Medicinal  Plants  in  America.  {Am-  J°ur-  P^arm. 
«■*  <-       Dec,  1910. 
almost  daily  barter  and  sale,  and  manifold  uses  of  which  constitute 
some  of  the  mysteries  of  our  enormous  patent  medicine  industry. 
There  are  warehouses  in  the  heart  of  New  York  City  filled  with 
great  bales  of  things  familiar  to  our  childhood  days :  cornsilk,  daisy 
tops,  red  clover  tops,  laurel  leaves,  skunk  cabbage,  flagroot,  burdock, 
dandelion,  gentian,  lily-of-the-valley,  wintergreen,  and  many  another 
of  our  old  friends  of  the  fields  and  woods.  The  inquirer  might  also 
be  surprised  to  learn  that  these  familiar  things  command  a  price 
Fig.  2.   A  close  up  view  of  the  two-man  planter  by  means  of  which  belladonna 
seedlings  are  set  out. 
varying  from  cents  to  dollars  per  pound  and  he  might  even  solemnly 
determine  to  turn  his  newly  acquired  knowledge  to  profitable  pur- 
poses and  forthwith  embark  in  the  combination  of  business  and 
pleasure  of  producing  and  purveying  herbs  and  simples.  Unfor- 
tunately, however,  for  this  laudable  ambition,  it  would  soon  become 
apparent  that  the  labor  involved,  for  instance,  in  gathering  two 
bales  of  green  corn  silk  or  something  else  which  shrinks  to  one  bale 
on  drying  is  quite  inadequately  paid  for  by  the  prices  offered  by  the 
stony-hearted  buyers  in  the  Xew  York  market.    In  fact,  it  would 
