CHAPTER XVII.
GOLDEN SEAL CULTIVATION.
I learned when a boy, by actual experience, that Golden Seal and Ginseng will not grow in open cultivated fields or gardens. I tried it faithfully. The soil must be virgin, or made practically so by the application of actual "new land" in such quantities that to prepare an acre for the proper growth of these plants would be almost impossible. And to furnish and keep in repair artificial shade for, say, an acre, would cost quite a little fortune. Of course one may cultivate a few hundred or few thousand in artificially prepared beds and shaded by artificial means, but to raise these plants successfully in anything like large quantities we must let nature herself prepare the beds and the shade.
When we follow nature closely we will not be troubled with diseases, such as blight and fungus. I know this by actual experience dear, and therefore dear to me.
Plants propagate themselves naturally by seedage, root suckers, and by root formation upon the tips of pendulous boughs coming in contact with the ground. Man propagates them artificially in various ways, as by layering, cuttings, grafting or budding, in all of which he must follow nature. The Golden Seal plant is readily propagated by any of the three following methods: (1) by seed; (2) by division of the large roots; (3) by suckers, or small plants which form on the large fibrous roots.
The seed berries should be gathered as soon as ripe, and mashed into a pulp, and left alone a day or two in a vessel, then washed out carefully and the seed stored in boxes of sandy loam on layers of rock moss, the moss turned bottom side up and the seed scattered thickly over it, then cover with about one-half inch of sandy loam, then place another layer of moss and seed, until you have four or five layers in a box. The box may be of any convenient size. The bottom of the box should be perforated with auger holes to secure good drainage. If water be allowed to stand upon the seeds they will not germinate, neither will they germinate if they become dry. The seeds should be kept moist but not wet. They may be sown in the fall, but, I think the better way, by far, is to keep your box of seeds in a cellar where they will not freeze until the latter part of winter or very early spring. If your seeds have been properly stratified and properly kept you will find by the middle of January that each little black seed has burst open and is wearing a beautiful shining golden vest. In fact, it is beginning to germinate, and the sooner it is put into the seed-bed the better. If left too long in the box you will find, to your displeasure, a mass of tangled golden thread-like rootlets and leaflets, a total loss.
To prepare a seed-bed, simply rake off the forest leaves from a spot of ground where the soil is rich and loamy, then with your rake make a shallow bed, scatter the seeds over it, broadcast, being careful not to sow them too thick. Firm the earth upon them with the back of the hoe or tramp them with the feet. This bed should not be near a large tree of any kind, and should be protected from the sun, especially from noon to 3 P. M.
The Golden Seal seedling has two round seed leaves upon long stems during the first season of its growth. These seed leaves do not resemble the leaves of the Golden Seal plant. The second and usually the third years the plant has one leaf. These seedlings may be set in rows in beds for cultivation in the early spring of the second or third year. This plant grows very slowly from seed for the first two or three years, after which the growth is more satisfactory.
By the second method, i. e., by division of the large roots, simply cut the roots up into pieces about one-fourth inch long and stratify in the same way as recommended for seeds, and by spring each piece will have developed a bud, and will be ready to transplant into beds for cultivation. This is a very satisfactory and a very successful method of propagating this plant. The plants grow off strong and robust from the start and soon become seed bearing.