AmbecUr'i9i8arm '}  Growing  Medicinal  Plants  in  America.  873 
also  adds  to  its  cost  of  production  the  cost  of  this  wholesale  weed- 
ing operation.  This  requirement  also  necessitates  the  seed  gardens 
being  remote  enough  from  the  main  crop  to  prevent  wind-blown 
pollen  from  reaching  the  female  survivors.  In  order  to  test  the 
necessity  for  this  requirement,  the  author,  in  cooperation  with  Mr. 
H.  C.  Fuller,  gathered  from  the  seed  gardens  flowering  male  tops, 
which  •  were  dried,  powdered,  and  bottled.  This  sample,  together 
with  a  pharmacopceial  sample  bearing  distinguishing  numbers  but 
no  other  information,  was  sent  to  the  physiological  laboratory  of 
the  Harvard  Medical  School.  The  report  showed  the  male  sample 
was  the  more  physiologically  active  of  the  two.  Although  the  phar- 
macopceial requirement  is  probably  a  survival  of  some  superstition 
originating  in  India,  the  drug-plant  grower  is  held  rigidly  to  it,  and 
it  is  extremely  unlikely  that  any  buyer  would  purchase  the  crude 
drug  in  the  powdered  form,  as  the  dried  flowers  must  be  present  so 
that  inspection  will  detect  the  presence  of  male  plants.  If  such 
specifications  are  annoying  to  the  commercial  drug  grower,  they 
would  be  found  intolerable  by  an  ordinary  farmer  who  might  other- 
wise feel  inclined  to  undertake  the  production  of  this  special  crop. 
All  medicinal  plants  are  intensely  poisonous  to  animals,  but 
curiously  enough,  most  of  them  are  very  attractive  to  predatory  in- 
sects. Possibly  insects  share  with  man  a  weakness  for  certain  things 
that  would  better  be  let  alone.  However  this  may  be,  the  author  has 
determined  by  actual  experiment  that  the  flea  beetle  consumes  about 
five  per  cent,  of  every  crop  of  belladonna  grown,  in  spite  of  the  most 
liberal  use  of  insecticides  and  agricultural  spraying  machinery. 
Henbane,  the  crude  drug  from  which  hyoscyamine  is  made,  sells 
at  about  four  dollars  a  pound  on  the  dry  basis,  and  is  worth  it, 
owing  to  the  eagerness  with  which  insects  appear  to  lie  in  wait  for 
every  green  shoot  as  it  appears.  In  the  course  of  the  author's  expe- 
rience potatoes  were  grown  in  the  neighborhood  of  henbane,  in  the 
hope  thot  it  would  act  the  part  of  a  decoy  crop.  Unfortunately, 
however,  the  potato  beetles  preferred  the  henbane,  and — if  we  may 
be  permitted  to  drop  into  the  vernacular — returned  to  their  own 
homes  only  after  all  the  other  places  were  shut  up. 
Among  the  medicinal  plants  which  the  author  and  his  associates 
have  attempted  to  grow  commercially  in  Virginia  and  Maryland, 
many  of  them  successfully,  are  belladonna,  digitalis,  cannabis,  sage, 
hydrastis,  ginseng,  stramonium,  monarda  punctata,  pinkroot,  valerian, 
senega,  colchicum,  etc.   Of  these,  the  first  two  have  to  be  propagated 
