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Ginseng  Relations and Diseases
DR. W. J. BEAL, LANSING
Mr. President: I rather feel that I am new in this business
and that you have got your expectations up higher than are war-
ranted.
In 1888 the United States government appropriated $15,000 to
each state and territory in the union to found an experiment
station. It is called the Hatch Experiment Station fund. Most
states have appropriated a large additional fund, which is added
to this regular fund from the government. New York has two stations, and the state appropriates $125,000 a year for experiments
in this line. We used to hear it said that Uncle Sam was rich
enough to give us all a farm. There is no country on the globe

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that begins to do as much on this line as the United States. I
mention this because the question is asked about my expenses, and
I say they are paid by Uncle Sam. Prof. Smith cautioned me, how-
ever, a little about allowing you to get an idea that we have an
unlimited fund to try experiments on ginseng. We have not. There
are many calls for experiments along other lines.

Having never met the members of this association, I run some
risk in attempting to say anything on this occasion, lest I become
commonplace in attempting to tell you what you already know better than I; or, on the other hand, to shoot over the mark by
telling something that you may not care to hear, or may not under-
stand. However, I hope to help you in some one or more points.

I was asked to say something about the ginseng family. All
seed plants or flowering plants have been classified and are recognized as grouped by their relationships into 200 or 220 natural
families. In other words, ginseng is placed in a family called Araliaceae, with some 450 species of plants scattered over the
land in temperate and tropical regions. These plants are grouped
in this way because they resemble each other in many particulars
more nearly than they resemble any other plants anywhere in the
world. The number of species in each of these 200 or more families varies much, from two or three species in the allspice family
to 10,000 or more species in the aster or sunflower family.

The ginseng family is a small family, having only about 450
species, mostly found in tropical regions. In the whole northeast-
ern part of the United States, running from Missouri to Maine, we
have six species of plants belonging to the ginseng family. They
include ginseng, dwarf ginseng, the small plant called ginseng bearing a little root, Hercules club, spikenard, wild sarsaparilla, bristly
sarsaparilla. These all grow wild in Michigan, except Hercules club.
The ginseng family is as nearly related to the parsnip family as
to any botanical family.

Here is a little record, as I keep it, of roots sent me:
25 3-year old plants, set May 7, 1907, from Dr. McMaster.
24 2-year-old plants, a few 3-year olds, set May 16, from Dr. Hosmer.
25 1-year olds, set May 6, 1907, from Ferris & Roof.

I have grown a small lot of ginseng in the botanic garden
at the college for twenty-five years or more, in rich ground in the
shade of bushes, until June, 1905, when the plants demonstrated
the fact that they were not adapted to a freshet, which soaked the
soil for from four to six days. The plants all died.

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Dr. Latimer: How do they apply the lime?
Dr. Beal: Put on the ground and plow under. Use slacked lime.
Mr. Goodspeed: I think you will find that nematoids will increase
quite rapidly, and an increase of two or three years will stop growth
entirely. We get that disease in the old sections of the country more
than in Michigan. I know of no remedy only to dry the root and
start in a new place. It is a disease that is very readily recognized.
Our experience is that sawdust does not retard the disease at all.
Mr. Pierce: Would it be safe to set ginseng, roots in the ground
after that preparation of lime has been put on ?

Dr. Beal: No, they recommend to go to another place.
Dr. McMaster: I will say we found some nematoids in our old
garden while digging this year. They were in beds from made ground
that had been filled in three or four feet with old plaster, and where-
ever that old plaster was, the nematoids were thick, and that plaster had plenty of lime in it.
Mr. Twiner: We have used lime every year, and we have never
made new beds unless we gave them first a coat of lime and spaded
it in.
Dr. McMaster: I would like to inquire of Mr. Goodspeed if it
effects the price.
Mr. Goodspeed: It is very rare you get it upon the body of the
root. It comes on the fibers and does no damage whatever to the
root. You could not tell, after the root was dried, whether it was
effected by that or not.
Mr. Luther: I would like to ask what remedy to use for rust.
Dr. Beal: Do you refer to alternaria on the roots? I cannot
tell you. I don't know much about it. I think Mr. Roof will explain
alternaria more fully than I can, if he will do it.
Mr. Roof: To distinguish alternaria: The first thing you would
discover would be perhaps a brownish spot on the leaf. It might
possibly start on the edge of the leaf and creep toward the center,
but we find ordinarily it begins in a spot and that spot soon becomes
transparent, from the sucking out of the juices of the leaf by the
fungi. You hold it up to the light and you see simply a hole, ex-
amine it carefully and you find there is a little film.
Dr. Beal: If you perceive this in the early stages, you can be-
gin your spraying.
Mr. Roof: Yes. There is a difference in the starting of alternaria upon the stalks and upon the seed heads. If alternaria attacks your seed head or stalk either, they both turn a sort of rust
color. If it attacks your seed head ,you see rust spot upon the seed
or head. You may look for blighted seed. In the case of the stalk,

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if that should be affected with alternaria, it turns a sort of rust col-
or and following that you either find a rotten spot or a dried up
portion of stock. It very often opens up a hole in the stalk and
then crawls up or down from where it is attacked, although I have
seen stalks that were so dried that there was simply a film on one
side where the outer skin of the stalk remained green and sufficient
sap had been carried up through that to maintain green leaves, but,
of course, could not produce any growth in that condition.
Dr. Beal: Any one that is looking after disease must train his
eyes to see these points.
Mr. Goodspeed: I would like to ask Dr. Beal if he knows any-
thing of the diseases we call rust affecting the skin of the plant.
Dr. Beal: I do not.
Mr. Goodspeed: It is something like potato scab.
Dr. Beal: On your young plants?
Mr. Goodspeed: Not especially young plants.
Dr. Beal: Have you had Prof. Whetzel look that up?
Mr. Goodspeed: We have both been looking it up. The only
remedy we can hit upon is to take the plants and move to a new section. Sometimes they will recover by taking up and setting in new
soil.
Mr. Roof: I bad just a little experience. I will say that it has
been my opinion from observation that it is some bug. Where I have
found that rust, I find that it is not communicated to other
roots in my case and, further, I have taken up roots that were
rusted and transferred to another bed and the rust has left them.

Dr. Beal: Mr. Goodspeed, has that been extensive enough to
cause any trouble?
Mr. Goodspeed: It seems to be locally in different sections.
It is not wide spread, but I know of two or three gardens which it has
got into bad. That disease practically spoils the root for market.
There is a little in Michigan and some in New York, but I notice it
comes more largely from sandy soil. Nearly every specimen I have
comes from sandy soil. I had one hundred pounds shipped to me
from Minnesota and not a root but was affected.
Mr. Ferris: On the matter of nematoid on the roots, I would
like to ask those who have had it, would it not be better to throw
away the roots or destroy them?
Dr. Beal: I would, most certainly.
Mr. Goodspeed: In that connection I would say that if you have
a considerable amount of them, isolate them until they get their
growth and dry and market them, but keep these roots entirely
away from your garden. If you can afford it, the 'better way is to

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destroy them at once, because that pest is certainly gaining.
We have handled this fall something like 175 different crops of
green root, coming to us from Wisconsin and Missouri, and I would
be safe to say that the disease is present in fully 50 per cent. of
the crops. Some crops will have it on every root.
Mr. Cook: Will the disease in time advance to the place where
it destroys the root? You said the presence of the disease did not
injure the root for market. If that is the case, why pay any attention to it?
Mr. Goodspeed: I said a moment ago that it would increase until it stopped the growth. It destroys the life of the fiber roots
and their ability to feed the plant. The fiber roots begin to die first
and all means of sustenance is taken away from the plant, while you
have the body of the plant there that can be turned into dried root
and something realized out of it.
Mr. Pierce: Has any one had any trouble with soft rot of the
roots? That is the fleshy part decaying entirely? I have had some
trouble, but not to any great extent, and I would like to know if
any one else has had any experience.
Dr. Beal: The only remedy is to get it out as soon as you can.
Mr. Goodspeed: I would dig it right out and burn it and look
out for the soil.
Mr. Murphy: I have had a little trouble with the root rotting,
and I have noticed it most when wet. I laid it to an over-supply of
water in my garden.
Dr. McMaster: It is a disease that spreads and the way to get
rid of it is to dig out that plant.
Mr. Goodspeed: If you wish to determine definitely whether you
have soft rot or not, you can determine by cutting the ginseng plant
just below the bud lengthwise and if you find a little red spot, that
indicates the disease. This is a root disease.
Mr. Pierce: Is this not more ruleable among aged and infirm
plants, that is old woods plants? I find it so in our garden.
Dr. McMaster: I think that is so.
Mr. Holly: I found it among some of my three year olds this 
year.
Mr. Goodspeed: Ginseng, in its natural element, is a long-lived
plant. It comes to a point of maturity in five or six years. If
you leave it in the garden after that, it begins to decay. It is
not an uncommon thing for a whole crop to take it into its head
to .disappear without any apparent disease.
Mr. Ketcham: It seems strange to me there should be so much
disease with plants grown in a garden. Now I have run the woods

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and dug many thousands of ginseng plants and I must say that 1
don't remember of having found a diseased ginseng root from the
woods. It looks to me as though most of these diseases come from
too much preparation of ground or something in the ground where we
put our gardens. I use leaf mold and the fine dirt beneath the leaves
and I must say I have never seen any disease of any kind in my
garden. No rot and no alteranria. My ground is good rich sand,
with clay two feet from the top of the ground.
Mr. Goodspeed: All that I can say is that Mr. Ketcham has
been unusually fortunate.
Dr. Beal: Prof. Whetzel claims he found alternaria in the woods.
Mr. Horling: I have found several specimens. I found a little
patch of heavy clay, and found not less than seven or eight that
were from one-third to one-half rotted in the woods.