Growing  Medicinal  Plants  in  America.  { Am-r/e°ur'I9PI3arm' 
in  a  greenhouse  during  the  winter  in  order  that  the  plants,  when  set 
out  in  the  field,  will  be  large  and  vigorous  enough  to  cope  with  the 
ravages  of  insects  and  crowding  out  by  weeds.  The  greenhouse  soil 
has  to  be  especially  sterilized  to  prevent  the  spread  of  a  special 
fungoid  root-rot  disease  to  which  belladonna  is  especially  susceptible 
and  which  follows  the  seedlings  from  the  greenhouse  to  the  open 
fields.  During  one  season  the  writer  lost  over  fifty  per  cent,  of  his 
belladonna  crop,  due  to  root-rot.  So  suddenly  did  the  disease  show 
iteslf  that  on  one  day  the  bushy  plants,  about  two  feet  high,  were 
flourishing  in  the  field  and  the  next  day  were  found  wilted  down 
and  dying.  The  roots  of  belladonna  are  rich  in  atropine  and  are 
usually  dug  up  and  sold  after  a  succession  of  leaf  crops  have  been 
gathered,  so  that  the  loss  from  root-rot  is  most  discouraging  and 
baffling. 
Ginseng  and  hydrastis  (golden  seal)  grow  in  leafy,  shady  woods 
and  are  much  appreciated  by  field  mice,  which  seem  to  feel  that 
the  crops  are  being  grown  for  their  exclusive  benefit.  Moles,  al- 
though they  do  not  appear  to  eat  the  roots,  are  most  destructive  and 
prefer  to  burrow  along  a  line  of  valuable  plants  rather  than  go  any- 
where else.  Ginseng  is  not  used  as  a  drug  in  any  country  except 
China,  so,  if  grown,  it  is  only  for  export.  It  is  doubtful  if,  under 
present  conditions,  its  cultivation  can  be  carried  on  profitably  in 
this  country  except  by  specialists  in  this  crop. 
This  paper  has  not  attempted  to  discuss  drugs  or  drug  growing 
in  their  technical  aspects,  but  merely  describes  a  few  of  the  condi- 
tions and  difficulties  encountered  by  a  group  of  associates  who  en- 
tered the  field  with  no  expectation  of  making  large  profits,  but  with 
the  patriotic  purpose  of  demonstrating,  if  possible,  that  American 
methods  were  capable  of  making  us  independent  of  central  Europe 
with  respect  to  some  very  necessary  medicinals. 
