A mbJe0cU,ria^8arm' )  Gr°™in9  Medicinal  Plants  in  America.  867 
probably  be  learned  that,  although  America  produces  more  corn 
silk  or  something  else  than  all  of  the  rest  of  the  world  together, 
from  time  out  of  mind  the  baled  corn  silk  or  something  else  has 
been  imported  from  overseas  where  child-labor  laws  are  unknown 
and  where  people's  wives,  mothers,  and  grandmothers  are  more  in- 
terested in  acquiring  a  few  extra  pennies  a  day  by  working  in  the 
fields  than  they  are  in  acquiring  a  vote. 
Seriously  speaking,  the  production  of  medicinal  herbs  in  America 
Fig.  3.    A  seven  acre  field  of  belladonna  ready  for  the  first  harvest. 
depends  very  largely  on  the  labor  cost,  and  can  be  made  a  profitable 
enterprise  only  wrhen  it  is  conducted  on  a  scientific  basis  and  on  a 
sufficiently  large  scale  to  absorb  the  high  cost  of  the  labor  involved 
in  the  tilling,  planting,  cultivating,  harvesting,  curing,  and  packing 
operations.  At  the  same  time,  the  drug  grower  faces  a  most  uncer- 
tain and  precarious  market  for  his  wares,  for,  although  his  drug 
plants  are  needed,  the  need  is  strictly  limited,  and  the  slightest  over- 
production is  either  entirely  unsalable  or  salable  at  a  price  less  than 
the  cost  of  production. 
A  well-known  authority  on  drug  growing,  Mr.  H.  C.  Fuller,  has 
