Ginseng is a plant that grows naturally in Vermont. It was discovered in Vermont as early as 1751. The root is the most valued part of the plant but the entire plant may be used for various purposes. Hunting ginseng was one way that people in Vermont found some extra income. It was a difficult job for those who didn't know the land or the plants that accompanied ginseng on the land. The price for it has risen over the years and it has become less hunted in the region because of protective and restrictive laws governing ginseng hunting. Below Scott talks about his experiences with ginseng.
| "I’m gonna try to tell you about ginseng, to give you something real quick. Ginseng grows in this valley, and it’s all here and there’s a lot of it, believe it or not. There’s more now than there used to be because there was more pressure on it and more ginseng hunters, hardly anyone hunts it. So there is a lot of ginseng on these hills, all of them. Mount Anthony down there, oh boy, and if you go towards Pownal, it’s all ginseng country, you go over to New York state, same thing, Mount Petersburg, that way, and in Massachusetts, anyway, it grows on these hills very good in Vermont, Vermont has a very good quality ginseng to it, it’s known all over as a good quality. It’s a hard root; the root is very hard so they can really make what they want out of it. And it’s a yellower root than some of the roots they’ve dug up in Kentucky, Tennessee, those are more of a white root, and these are yellow. But it’s a fascinating little plant, and it grows its own particular way on a hill, and it has its companion plants, it likes to grow around certain trees, and certain other companion plants. So in order to hunt that you have to really know the trees and you have to know the plants in the woods because you can just go in a forest and if you don’t know what you’re looking for you don’t stand much of a chance of getting it, because there’ll be a patch of ginseng growing right up the side of the hill like that, right up and down the hill, and go over 200 yards and there won’t be a spear, there won’t be none. It’s because of the companion trees, see like maple, ash, basswood, butternut, nice leafy humus soil, it needs it. So you go where those trees are. Then there’s like Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Cuhush, and things like that that grow on the ground and it likes those too. So if you hunt ginseng you’ve got to know a lot of that other stuff. Ginseng, when I first started, it was around 50 cents a pound dry, and now it’s over 200, so you know, of course the dollar has changed a lot since then. So you can do it, you can make some money, you can, it pays to go out and get it and hunt it. There’s regulations, you have to get a license and you have to have permission from the land owner where you’re going and stuff like that. But in the old days there wasn’t. I just thought you might like that little ginseng tidbit there." |