An Arkansas cattleman lately advised me with some marvel that he had bought a single cow for $1,000. Such costs are superb at the moment, however think about what our farmer ancestors would have thought. Till nicely into the twentieth century, an enormous share of Arkansas farmers needed to scramble to maintain meals on the desk. One of many methods farmers made do was by extracting pure assets, together with a protracted custom of digging wild plant roots for his or her financial worth.
Of all of the medicinal herbs present in Arkansas, ginseng is the perfect recognized. Often referred to as “Sang” by outdated time residents of the Ozarks the place it’s a native, ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) has been exported for hundreds of years to China the place it was generally known as an aphrodisiac. One supply reviews that ginseng bought at eight-to-ten instances its weight in silver in 1784 “Pekin.”
Ginseng grows in wealthy woodland soil, usually in colonies. It’s a low plant, rising about one foot excessive and having solely three giant leaves, every composed of 5 leaflets. It has a single and inconspicuous flower, however the ensuing purple seed pod is showy. It was the fats ball of woody roots that diggers sought. In the course of the Nineteen Twenties a pound of dried ginseng roots fetched $7 to $15, not a small amount of cash.
Diggers laid declare to ginseng colonies, maintaining the placement secret if attainable for the reason that hills and hollows had been filled with overall-clad males trying to find sang. Jacob H. Petree, a farmer from the small Newton County neighborhood of Compton, took a unique strategy. After experimenting with cultivating the vegetation from seeds, Petree and a son developed a large ginseng rising operation which made Compton a middle for the commerce.
One other generally harvested wild plant was goldenseal, the much less well-known associate within the “Sang and Seal” duo. Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) is just like ginseng in that it’s not a presupposing plant, has a single inconspicuous flower, and produces a purple raspberry-like fruit which accommodates 10-to-30 seeds.
The Petree household, the ginseng kings of Newton County, additionally cultivated goldenseal in giant portions. This was a laborious job as a result of it takes a full three years earlier than a goldenseal plant has a totally mature rhizome — because the thick horizontal root is understood botanically. Within the years simply earlier than World Warfare II, younger women and girls had been employed to plant the seeds, being paid $2 for sowing a blue glass Vicks salve jar filled with the small seeds.
Harvesting the roots was a chore. The roots needed to be lifted with a digging fork, the soil shaken off, the roots totally washed, after which positioned in giant sacks for drying within the solar. One Newton County lady recalled her Nineteen Forties childhood dwelling as stuffed with “bedsheet sacks” of drying goldenseal, “these sacks had been carried outdoors to dry on sunny days, after which introduced again indoors each night time.” Seeds had been additionally harvested and replanted.
Goldenseal is a kind of herbs which had many makes use of, particularly as a topical anti-microbial. However, lots of the informally educated people docs — usually referred to as “yarb docs” — swore that goldenseal would remedy every thing from indigestion to canker sores. The U.S. Military bought giant quantities of goldenseal till the event of penicillin in 1928.
A wide range of different vegetation had been additionally harvested for the herb commerce, together with bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). Bloodroot, which has a finger-size root filled with purple juice, was used for a number of medical remedies — however at the moment it’s acknowledged as a probably harmful herb.
Root diggers often discovered a prepared marketplace for their merchandise. Nation shops usually bought medical herbs and roots or accepted them in lieu of money. In Mena, deep within the Ouachita Mountains, W.H. Graves had a big retailer within the Nineteen Twenties the place he marketed for “hides, furs & wool, and all types of roots.” Apparently, at the moment Mena is dwelling to Rowland Botanicals, which advertises for “goldenseal, bloodroot, snakeroot, ginseng, toothache, tree bark and wild indigo.”
UPDATE: Final week I wrote a couple of invoice being thought of within the Particular Legislative Session to strip the 111-year-old Arkansas Historical past Fee of its powers and switch the company from the Division of Parks and Tourism to the management of the director of the Division of Arkansas Heritage, Stacy Hurst. The laws, which was drawn up in secret, was adopted regardless of widespread public outrage. Now we face the unhappy actuality that Arkansas historical past rests squarely within the palms of a single state bureaucrat. Keep tuned for additional developments.
Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist dwelling in Scorching Spring County. Electronic mail him at [email protected] An earlier model of this column appeared Jan. 22, 2012.
NAN Profiles on 05/29/2016
