ained, worth one pound and
tenpence sterling. The export of this article amounted in 1752 to
L20,000 sterling. But the Canadians, eager suddenly to enrich
themselves, reaped this plant in May when it should not have been
gathered until September, and dried it in ovens when its moisture should
have been gradually evaporated in the shade. This fatal mistake, arising
from cupidity, and in some measure from ignorance, ruined the sale of
their ginseng among the only people on earth who are partial to its use,
and at an early period cut off from the colony a new branch of trade,
which, under proper regulations, might have been essentially
productive."--Heriot's _Travels through the Canadas_, p. 99, 1807.

"Mountainous woods in Tartary are mentioned as the place where the
ginseng is produced in the greatest abundance. In 1709, the emperor
ordered an army of ten thousand men to collect all the ginseng they
could find, and each person was to give him two ounces of the best,
while for the remainder payment was to be made in silver, weight for
weight. It was in the same year that Father Jartoux, a Jesuit missionary
in China, prepared a figure and accurate description of the plant, in
which he bears testimony to the beneficial effects of the root. He tried
it in many instances himself, and always with the same result,
especially when exhausted with fatigue. His pulse was increased, his
appetite improved, and his whole frame invigorated. Judging from the
accounts before us, we should say that the Chinese were extravagant in
their ideas of the virtues of this herb; but that it is undoubtedly a
cordial stimulant, to be compared, perhaps, in some degree, with the
aromatic root of Meum athamanticum, so much esteemed by the Scottish
Highlanders. It has nevertheless disappeared from our Materia
Medica."--Murray's _Canada_, vol. iii., p. 308. Charlevoix, tom. vi., p.
24.

"Ginseng a veritablement la vertu de soutenir, de fortifier, et de
rappeller les forces epuisees."--Lafitau, tom. ii., p. 142.]

[Footnote 177: In La Hontan's time (1683), he speaks of "maiden-hair"
being as common in the forests of Canada as fern in those of France, and
is esteemed beyond that of other countries, insomuch that the
inhabitants of Quebec prepare great quantities of its syrup, which they
send to Paris, Nantes, Rouen, and several other cities of France.
Charlevoix gives a figure of the maiden-hair (tom. iv., p. 301), under
the name of Adiantum Americanum.