There has never been a time in the history of this country when the cultivation of certain medicinal plants, as Golden Seal, Ginseng, Seneca and others appealed so much to those interested in such things as the present.
Many of these plants have hitherto been found growing wild in our woods and fields, and along our road sides and waste places, and have usually been gathered in an immature state and out of season, washed and cured in a slovenly manner and bartered at country stores for coffee and calico and other commodities. In this way the drugs and drug trade of the country have been supplied. I think it is very evident to the casual observer that this manner of supply is nearing its close finally and forever.
The merchant who handles the stock may not know as yet the great and growing scarcity of almost all our medicinal plants. But the digger who has stood at the first end of the drug trade, in touch with the natural supply, knows that the fountains are dried up, in great measure, and that the streams of the trade must necessarily soon cease to flow or be supplied by artificial means. In most cases medicinal plants grow naturally in the best soils, the sandy, loamy, moist north hill sides, the rich, black coves at the heads of our small streams and in the rich alluvial bottoms along our larger creeks and small rivers. They will not grow in wet lands or on south hill sides. This should be remembered by the would-be culturist and the natural whims of the plant attended to, else failure and disappointment are sure.
What I have said is peculiarly the case with Golden Seal, the yellow root of our locality, the ground raspberry of another, the yellow puccoon of another and probably bearing other local names in other localities. The natural habitat of Golden Seal has been cleared up for farming or grazing purposes, while the keen eyed "sanger" has ferreted out every nook and corner adapted to the growth of this plant and then ruthlessly dug it, little and big, old and young, until today it is a very scarce article.
The Indians regarded Golden Seal as a sure remedy for sore and inflamed eyes, sore mouths, old sores, wounds, etc., and first taught the whites its use as a remedy.
The pioneers used it as teas, washes and salves years before it became known to the medical fraternity. It did not become an article of commerce in any way until about the year 1847, and then it was so plentiful and so little used that the trade was supplied at 3 cents per pound for the dried root. I dug it myself, when a boy, as late as 1868, and received 5 cents per pound for the dried root, in trade, at a country store. I found it plentiful in patches in open woods where the ground was rich and favored the growth of paw paw, dogwood, walnut, elm, sugar maple, etc. It grew best in land well drained and full of leaf mold. Remember this, ye planters.
Well, the demand has rapidly increased, and the supply, from the causes afore mentioned, has more rapidly decreased, until the price has risen from 3 cents to $1.50 per pound. Golden Seal was originally found growing in favorable localities from Southern New York west to Minnesota, thence south to Arkansas and east to Georgia and the hill regions of the Carolinas. Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky have been by far the greatest Golden Seal producing sections.
Golden Seal is a perennial plant, the gnarly, knotty root of which is the part used in medicine. These knotty roots send out in every direction many long, slender, bright yellow, fibrous roots. Each root in spring early sends up one to six hairy stems six inches to fifteen or twenty inches in height, each stem supporting at the top one, or if a seed yielding plant, two large leaves, in shape somewhat resembling the leaf of the sugar maple, but thicker and more leathery. At the base of each stem are two or three scale like leaves starting from the root, around the stem and extending to the surface of the ground. These scales are yellow while the leaf stems are somewhat purplish in color. The seed bearing stocks fork near the top of the plant, each stem supporting a leaf, the smaller leaf enclosing a flower bud at the base and at the top of the leaf stem. The plants that are not of seed bearing age and size do not fork and have but one leaf. The flowers are greenish, about an inch in diameter and open, here, about the first of May. Then continue open about five days when the petals fall and the development of the seed berry begins.
This berry ripens in July. When ripe it is red in color and resembles a large raspberry and contains about 20 to 30 small, round, black, shiny, hard seeds. These seeds, if stratified at once and kept in moist, sandy loam, will begin to open by the first of February, each seed showing a beautiful, bright, shiny, golden bud. The seeds should be planted very early. When it comes up the young plant has two leaves and does not develop any further leaf or stem growth during the first summer. The first two leaves do not look at all like those that follow. So, be careful or you will destroy your plants for weeds.