But to Hear It from Wardens in The Woods, The Soothing, Medicinal Root Can Bring Headaches.
It has been described as one of the best kept secrets in the remote hills of southwest Wisconsin, so sequestered that sons may only learn of their father's patches after the elders stop digging.
Why, then, are some dealers, diggers and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources conservation wardens concerned about the status of the highly-regulated, wild ginseng plant?
"Many landowners don't know what they have out there," said Michael Nice, DNR warden. "We are trying to create an awareness."
"If there is someone on your property at this time of the year, that you haven't seen before, it's probably someone digging ginseng or golden seal. And some are (have been) digging before the season, taking small plants and not planting the seeds and even trespassing."
Ginseng digging is a regulated activity, requiring diggers to purchase a license ($15.75 for residents), dig only during the season (Sept. 1 to Nov. 1) and only take mature plants (which have more than two compound leaves). Nice and John Buss, a warden from Sauk County, have been patrolling the hills and valleys of Richland County recently, checking complaints, hoping to have a positive impact on the plant's future.
"There's a lure about the plant," Buss said. "Guys have their favorite digging tool, usually a screwdriver, but some tools are sacred to the digger. When I took this ginseng bag from the digger, he had a conniption. It's nothing more than an old shirtsleeve tied off at one end."
Fines for not adhering to regulations are steep, as diggers in Richland County learned recently. They were detained by Nice and Buss, a warden from Sauk County, with roots valued at several hundreds of dollars and the Richland Center diggers have been fined more than $1,100 for digging prior to the season, trespassing and the taking of small plants.
The money from the eventual sale of confiscated roots will either go back to the state or, in cases of trespassing, may go back to the landowner.
Onee Richlaand Center digger harvested roots valued at $1,500 when he was cited for lations by Nice last month.
"We have a good cooperating system," Nice said. "There are some good, quality diggers who are calling and telling us that others are digging illegally, before the season or trespass -ing."
"I have a digger in Sauk County," Buss said, "who said `20 years ago I probably would have never turned in someone for crossing property lines or digging early, but I've always done
it by the numbers and it (the ginseng ) just isn't there anymore.' "
Longtime diggers and dealers say there has been a gradual decrease in the size and quantity of the roots being sold. "The amounts being brought in have gone down, too," said Ron Dobbs, at Buckhorn Fur Center Ginseng in Richland Center.
"It's still out there but not in the quantity that it was."
The prices quoted, some between $200 and $300 per pound, were as high as $550 several years ago. The prices are for dried roots. It takes about 4 pounds of green roots to equal a pound of dry roots. Dealers, like Dobbs, will purchase green or dry roots.
Dobbs has seen the amounts of roots being brought in drop from about 2 pounds to less than a pound. A collection of good-sized roots will number about 20 per pound.
"In addition to the regulations, no one should be digging in roots smaller than your thumb," Dobbs said.
- BY : Jerry Davis
- SOURCE : Wisconsin State Journal1998.09.06
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