Ginseng - the Oxford dictionary defines it as a medicinal plant, of the genus Panax, found in East Asia and North America.
I'd been hearing about it for years as an aid to male potency and a general health remedy. Last month when I went to the Rainey Ginseng Farm, near Brantford, I found that Southern
Ontario is one of the world's major growing areas for this popular panacea.
Large quantities are air-freighted from the Lake Erie lowlands to Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore and Taiwan.
Many bus loads of visitors come here every year. They want to see how ginseng is grown and to learn about the university research into its medicinal properties.
If you're interested, you're welcome to visit the Rainey farm any day but Sunday from now to the end of November.
Get together a group of 10 or more and you can phone ahead to book a free tractor-wagon tour of the farm and production facilities.
Go alone and you can still view an Ontario ginseng video, talk to Keith Rainey or one of his helpers and pick up lots of literature about this interesting plant. Orientals have been
taking it for centuries as a preventative and general health aid.
Reports by the Canadian Ginseng Research Foundation state that research at the University of Toronto, McMaster University and the University of Alberta show that traditional faith in
ginseng has a basis in fact. Free copies are available at the Rainey farm shop.
Ginseng (Panax Quinquefolium) is a short five-leafed perennial plant that needs lots of shade. It grows naturally in hardwood forests. On farms, it is cultivated under wooden or plastic canopies.
Harvest is in late fall three to five years after the seeds go into the ground. Red berry clusters are collected for future seeds but roots are the real crop. Hairy and fibrous,
sometimes shaped like a human body, ginseng roots are gathered partly by machine and partly by hand.
You can buy them in packs as whole roots, as fibre, in capsules, iin teea bags, in candy, as coating on nuts, or in soap, shampoo and skin conditioners.
Keith Rainey says the most popular forms are capsules and tea.
I got a bottle of 100 capsules ($12) and have started taking one a day as a trial. Rainey, who looks like a healthy specimen, says he's had one a day for most of his life.
Ginseng has a colourful and important history in Canada. In 1709, a Jesuit missionary named Jartoux went to China where he found ginseng was a popular and expensive medicinal herb. He
wrote a report that was published in Paris.
A copy came to Joseph Francois Lafitau, another Jesuit, in Quebec.
Lafitau -- he later became famous for his massive book entitled Customs of the American Indians -- had heard from Mohawks along the St. Lawrence about a similar plant. He compared it with Jartoux's drawings and found that ginseng was growing wild here. After he sent samples and a report back to France, a ginseng rush took place.
In Ontario, ginseng has been farmed since the 1800s. The Rainey farm was started by Keith's father, James, in 1947.
Farm and shop are open for visits until Nov. 28, Monday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For information and to book tours, call 1-800-988-8808.
- SOURCE : The Toronto Sun1998.11.11
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