The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1907-06-06
THE RAISING OF GINSENG.
A Visit to D. B. CoWles' Ginseng Gar
den Reveals Many Botanical
Wonders.

WOHQcTS.
Everybody knows what ginseng is,
or has heard of it as a root that is
used as medicine, but how many have
seen it growing in cultivation, and how
many know that the roots can be sold
for $3.50 to $500 per pound, wholesale,
and retail at rs cents per ounce at drug
stores?
The old settlers, especially from the
eastern states where there used to be
lots of woods, remember how plenti-
fully ginseng grew in the olden days,
and how cheaply it was held. The old
grandmothers used to keep some of it
to nibble for their ailments, and some
persons even dug it for the market, re-
ceiving % to SO cents pound. But
that was many years ago. The demand
has gradually grown, as the medicinal
value of the root has become known,
and the price has gradually advanced
as the wild supply was used up, until
now the root brings in the phenomenal
price named above, and there is no sign
of it becoming cheaper for years to
come, for hundreds of ginseng hunters
scour every nook of the woods in the
whole country, and it is of only late
years that the cultivation of the plant
has been undertaken. In all the United
States there are said to be only Is acres
in cultivation, while it takes the supply
from 10000 acres to supply the worlds
demand. So the $3.50 per pound price
will not abate very soon.
1t was the fancy price of the root,
and a natural love of gardening COM
bined, that prompted d. B. Cowles,
the veteran Burlington Route conduct
or of this city, to undertake two years
ago the cultivation of ginseng. He
bought seeds and a few yearling and
two-year-old plants from other growers,
and built the pen required, resembling
a closely Slated chicken coop with
Slated roof to allow full ventilation
and dim light, without the direct rays
of the sun to burn up the plants, which
are used to the damp messy shade of a
forest. Mr.. Cowles' pen is fifty feet
square, and high enough inside to
stand up in. In there he has eight or
ten long beds, and in them are thous-
ands of ginseng plants Of different ages.
In the first bed are the tiny new plants
just coming up from the seeds, in the
next the yearlings, and so on up to the
coming five year olds, which are ready
to be pulled for the market. The roots
are best from plants four to eight years
old. After that age they become pithy,
like old radishes, and go mostly to seed.
The roots resemble radishes somewhat,
and to market them they are dried, in
which process they lose two-thirds of
their weight, and are then ready to be
sold. The plants in maturity are from
foot to nearly two feet high, and have
a little bunch of seeds in the midst of
the umbrella like cluster of leaves,
which seeds turn red when ripe. Mr..
Cowles carefully saves every seed, as
we'll as every plant. and carefully counts
them, as they are very valuable. He
almost literally knows personally every
one of his thousands of plants, and
spends nearly all his spare time watch
ing them grow, keeping the beds clean
from weeds, and planting and trans
planting. 1t is a great diversion for
him, as he would otherwise have moth
ing to occupy his hours between trains,
and aside from his great love of the
work he will reap splendid profit from
his little fifty foot patch. His plants
are already worth over 81 900, and are
doubling in value every year.
Mr.. Cowles is only one of four Chart
ton citizens who are raising the valu-
able root, w. w. Kridelbaugh, Jas. Ma
loney and DR.. Yocom being the other
three, and at the present price of the
root it will not be long until thousands
of people all over the country will take
up it's culture for the market. One man
in Joplin Mo-, clears from $4,000 to
S25,000 per year on two acres of it, and
a physician in northern state gave up
a $4,000 practice to raise it.-Chariton
Herald.