out of season, and imperfectly dried in stove-ovens. Even in this state it brought twenty-five livres per pound. In 1752 ginseng of this character to the value of five hundred thousand livres was exported. In 1754 the value of the export had fallen to thirty-three thousand livres. A quantity sent to La Rochelle remained unsold, but finally found its way to China, where its inferior quality gave the Canadian article a bad reputation; the demand fell off, and the export ceased. When the trade was at its height it was considered more profitable to gather ginseng than to cultivate the farm, and agriculture was almost entirely neglected. The result was, that the plant almost entirely disappeared. It came to be a proverb among the people, when speaking of some matter that had failed, "C'est tombé comme le ginseng."[1]
The revival of the trade has caused great activity in the search for the plant throughout the country back of Kingston, where it is said to abound. The profits on it are stated to be four hundred per cent, and one druggist there cleared three thousand dollars in one deal. The average wholesale price is one dollar per pound, the retail price five dollars. If the trade is to be preserved, care will have to be taken to prepare the root properly and not dig it up indiscriminately, as the root does not reach any great size in one season, but takes years to develop. In the desire to participate in the profits of the trade, some curious mistakes have been made. One man, who thought he had a rich find in Manitoba, discovered, after buying several tons, that he had not the right article. Many have confused gentian with ginseng, and, on testing the root of the former, have wondered why the Chinese were so fond of the latter.
The Chinese word gen-seng, and the Iroquois word garent-oquen, the Indian name of the plant, both mean "a man's thigh," and have doubtless been applied because of a supposed resemblance of the root to that part of the human body. This coincidence Père Lafitan could not consider fortuitous, and upon it he based an argument that America had once been joined to Asia, and that the Indian population of the former had originally come from the latter before the continents were severed at Bering Strait. The accompanying figure gives a general idea of the appearance of the plant.
- ↑ It has gone down like ginseng.
