Plants may be readily propagated by cutting up the roots into pieces, say 1/4-inch long and placing these root cuttings in boxes of loamy sand in the autumn. By spring each root cutting will have developed a fine bud and be ready for transplanting, which should be done as early as possible. The plant also propagates itself by sending up suckers from the fibrous roots.
Locust Grove Seal Garden.
As to culture, I would say, follow nature. Do not plow and hoe and rake and make a bed as for onions. Just simply select a piece of virgin soil, if possible, and make rows, say one foot apart and set the plants about three or four inches apart in the rows. All the culture needful is to pull out the weeds, and, if the trees in the patch be not sufficient to furnish a good leaf mulch in the fall, attend to this by mulching with a good coat of forest leaves.
My Golden Seal garden is in a locust grove that is rapidly growing into posts, so, you see, I am getting two very profitable crops off the same land at the same time. The plants should grow in a bed of this kind until it becomes full of roots, which will require three to five years. It is all the better if they are allowed to grow longer. The whole patch should be dug in the fall when the tops die down. The large roots should be carefully washed and cleansed of all foreign roots and fibers and dried on clean cloths in the shade, when it is ready for market and should be shipped in clean, new bags to some reliable dealer in the larger cities. There are plenty of them and I would advise that you write to several of them, telling them just what you have before you ship.
I know from actual experience that good money may be made by the right party in the culture of Golden Seal. If a young man would start a garden of medicinal plants and attend to it at odd times, studying the nature of the plants and carefully save all seeds and add them to his stock, in a few years he would have a garden with a large sum of money. I have estimated an acre of Golden Seal at full maturity and as thick on the ground as it should be grown to be worth $4,840, or one dollar per square yard. It will not take a very great while to fill an acre with plants. Besides, if the land is planted in locust trees it is yielding two crops of wonderful value at the same time.
One young man from Virginia says: "I have a piece of new ground just cleared up which I think would be just the thing, and then I could set out short stem red cherries to shade and cover the ground. Please let me hear from you at once." Well, if this piece of ground is on the right side of the hill, that is, the north or northeast or west slope, and is rich, loose and loamy, full of leaf mold and naturally well drained, it is all right for Golden Seal, but would it suit cherries? Cherries might do very well for shade, but I would prefer catalpa or locust or some other quick growing timber tree to any sort of fruit tree.
One reason is that in gathering the fruit and in caring for the trees I think the Golden Seal would be trampled upon and injured, also the ground would be trampled and compacted and thus rendered unsuitable for this plant. The ground in which Golden Seal grows should be kept in its "new state" as much as possible. However, my Virginia friend may succeed well with his cherries and Seal. He must keep up the primitive condition of the soil and keep out weeds and grass.
Another question, "How long will it take it to mature?" As to its "maturity," it may be dug, cleansed, dried and marketed at any time and in any stage of its growth. But I think that a setting of Golden Seal should be dug in the fall three or four years after planting; the large roots washed and cleansed and made ready for market, while the smaller roots should be used for resetting the bed. You will have enough small roots to set a patch ten or twelve times the size of the one you dig, as each root set will in three or four years produce ten to fifteen good plants besides yielding a lot of seed.