Conscientious herb gathering

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Euell Gibbons states that there is probably more wild ginseng in America today than there was fifty years ago. Even at the high prices currently paid for wild long, it still takes a great deal of time, effort and knowledge to collect enough to significantly increase even a low income. Accordingly, Gibbons seems to feel that because of today's greater affluence and lessened financial need-the gathering of the valuable roots has perhaps decreased. This may be true in some areas of the country. I sincerely hope that it is.

Still, I can't forget the incident that sparked the writing of this article. I've done some talking recently to small herb buyers in West Virginia and other less prosperous parts of the southern Appalachians, and one of them showed me a bag full of several pounds of the tiniest ginseng roots else ever seen. When 'seng is cultivated, the grower waits six or eight years before he considers the crop ready to harvest. The specimens in that sack, however, were almost all less than three years old some were seedlings and almost all had been gathered before the plants could reproduce. It would take somewhere around a thousand such small fry to make a pound. That's about a nickel apiece for one of the rarest botanicals in the world. When I commented on tee minute size, the dealer shrugged and said, "That's what they brought in." It's this kind of collecting that is endangering ginseng populations.

True, another kind of wildcrafter still exists: the kind who waits until fall when the berries are ripe before he goes out sengin. When such a person digs ginseng roots, he plants the berries in the same place to insure a crop in the seasons to come. He may return to a favorite bed year after year, harvesting only the bigger specimens. Sometimes he'll bring a few seeds or small roots home to replant in the edge of the backyard or "in the holler behind the house, just to watch 'em grow".

Unfortunately, such care seems to be the exception. The "rule" is the pollution, exploitation and insensitivity of our materially oriented culture which is creeping up the creeks and tainting even the people of the hollows and ridges where the springs still run clear. That kind of rule, though, is made to be broken with a little awareness, common sense and conscientiousness.

OK, so you're wandering through some rich, shady "holler" and you actually stumble on a bed of 'seng. By all means, giggle and shiver and sing praises to your great cosmic doodah but if you do a dance of thanks giving, be careful not to trample any ginseng seedlings. They're hard to recognize because they have only three leaves and bear more resemblance to strawberry plants than to their parents. Then, when you're done rejoicing, you must decide whether you want to harvest any of your find (and if so, how).

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