An Arkansas cattleman recently told me with some wonder that he had sold a single cow for $1,000. Such prices are amazing today, but imagine what our farmer ancestors would have thought. Until well into the 20th century, a huge percentage of Arkansas farmers had to scramble to keep food on the table. One of the ways farmers made do was by extracting natural resources, including a long tradition of digging wild plant roots for their economic value.
Of all the medicinal herbs found in Arkansas, ginseng is the best known. Usually called "sang" by old-time residents of the Ozarks where it is a native, ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) has been exported for centuries to China where it was known as an aphrodisiac. One source reports that ginseng sold at eight to 10 times its weight in silver in 1784 Pekin.
Ginseng grows in rich woodland soil, often in colonies. It is a low plant, about one foot tall with three large leaves, each composed of five leaflets. It has a single and inconspicuous flower, but the resulting red seed pod is showy. It was the fat ball of woody roots that diggers sought. During the 1920s a pound of dried ginseng roots fetched $7 to $15, not a small amount.
Diggers laid claim to ginseng colonies, keeping the location secret if possible since the hills and hollows were full of overall-clad men searching for sang. Jacob H. Petree, a farmer from the small Newton County community of Compton, took a different approach. After experimenting with cultivating the plants from seeds, Petree and a son developed a sizable ginseng growing operation which made Compton a center for the trade.
Another commonly harvested wild plant was goldenseal, the less well known partner in the "sang and seal" duo. Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) is similar to ginseng in that it is not a presupposing plant, has a single inconspicuous flower, and produces a red raspberry-like fruit which contains 10 to 30 seeds.
The Petree family, ginseng kings of Newton County, also cultivated goldenseal in large quantities. This was a laborious task because it takes a full three years before a goldenseal plant has a fully mature rhizome (as the thick horizontal root is known botanically). In the years just before World War II, young girls and women were hired to plant the seeds, being paid $2 for sowing a blue glass Vicks salve jar full of the small seeds.
Harvesting the roots was a chore, The roots had to be lifted with a digging fork, the soil shaken off, the roots thoroughly washed, then placed in large sacks for drying in the sun. One Newton County woman recalled her 1940s childhood home as filled with "bedsheet sacks" of drying goldenseal. "Those sacks were carried outside to dry on sunny days, and then brought back indoors every night." Seeds were also harvested and replanted.
Goldenseal is one of those herbs which had many uses, especially as a topical anti-microbial. But many of the informally trained folk doctors--often called "yarb doctors"--swore that goldenseal would cure everything from indigestion to canker sores. The U.S. Army purchased large amounts of goldenseal until the development of penicillin in 1928.
A variety of other plants were also harvested for the herb trade, including bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). Bloodroot, which has a finger-size root full of red juice, was used for a host of medical treatments, but today it is recognized as a potentially dangerous herb.
Root diggers usually found a ready market for their products. Country stores often purchased medical herbs and roots or accepted them in lieu of cash. In Mena, deep in the Ouachita Mountains, W.H. Graves had a large store in the 1920s where he advertised for "hides, furs, & wool, and all kinds of roots." Today Mena is home to Rowland Botanicals, which advertises for "goldenseal, bloodroot, snakeroot, ginseng, toothache, tree bark, and wild indigo."
Update: Last week I wrote about a bill being considered in the special legislative session to strip the 111-year-old Arkansas History Commission of its powers and transfer the agency from the Department of Parks and Tourism to the control of Stacy Hurst, the director of the Department of Arkansas Heritage. The legislation, which was drawn up in secret, was adopted despite widespread public outrage. Now we face the sad reality that Arkansas history rests squarely in the hands of a single state bureaucrat. Stay tuned for further developments.
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Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living in Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com. An earlier version of this column appeared Jan. 22, 2012.
Editorial on 05/29/2016