'Thar's gold in them thar hills'...
For many, that phrase conjures up images of shiny yellow nuggets and grizzled miners.
But some East Tennesseans say the words actually referred to the roots of ginseng , an inconspicuous plant once common in these hollows.
Dec. 31 marked the end of the " 'sang" season - and the end of income that in 1993 brought over $3.5 million into Tennessee.
James Moore, now 25, started digging ginseng when he was 7. "My grandfather taught me," he says. "Then I started going out and looking for it by myself when I was about 11." He explains that the legal ginseng season starts Aug. 15 when the plant's berries are ripe. "If you pick it before then, the berries won't ripen and have a chance to make new plants."
By early fall, the nights have cooled, and the days are shorter. The ginseng plant's leaves turn from green to gold, its berries turn a brilliant red, and it becomes a little less inconspicuous. Vehicles begin turning up in odd places, pulled off to the side of quiet back roads and along the edge of wooded patches. Some are rusty old pickups, some are shiny new Volvos - ginseng -hunting attracts all kinds of people from off-hour physicians to unemployed shift workers.
"Lots of people find it a real relaxing hobby," says Moore. When the first hard frost hits, around mid-October, the ginseng 's leaves wilt, and the plants almost seem to melt away. Most of the hunters give up, and the woods are quiet again.
The field guides call the ginseng found here Panax quinquefolius. 'Panax' means 'panacea,' or cure-all, which is how ginseng has been used in the Orient for thousands of years.
A Jesuit cartographer working in China reported the medicinal use of the Chinese species in 1713. Joseph Francois Lafiteau, a Canadian Jesuit, read the report, searched and found the American species near Quebec. The plant extends throughout the northeastern and central states.
The roots of the wild plant have been sold heree for over 2000 years - many colonists dug and traded it, including Daniel Boone. Current diggers such as Moore use a dehydrator to dry out their finds, then take them to a buyer.
The price he gets varies from week to week and depends on the quality of the root: Plants grown in loose cultivated soil form roots that are smooth, a "bone root," says Moore. The average price for cultivated ginseng in Tennessee in 1993 was $40 per pound of dry weight, according to Reggie Reeves, administrator of natural and cultural resources of the Tennessee Dept. of Conservation and Environment.
Wild plants that grow slowly in hard-packed soil form roots with distinct pressure rings, and these bring a higher price. The average national 1994 price was $153 per pound of dry weight, according to the July issue of American Ginseng Trades magazine. Tennessee wild ginseng brings a much higher price:
1993 prices ranged between $200-250 a pound dry weight, says Reeves. Tennessee and Kentucky are the leading producers of wild ginseng with approximately 25,000 pounds harvested in 1993.
Although it's so much cheaper, cultivated ginseng is also big business. Wisconsin is the American ginseng production center with a 1992 export of 1,520,668 pounds.
October is Moore's favorite time of year. He's not a small man and is carrying a few extra pounds, but still he moves easily, slowly, steadily up and down the steep ridges, through downed brush, over fallen logs, with his eyes on the ground, mattock in hand, canvas bag over his shoulder.
There are hazards to this business. Moore says he's always careful to get permission before going on private land. "I've got buddies that have been shot at," he says. "If I don't have permission, I don't go."
He has run into stands of marijuana deep in the woods and always keeps an eye out for snakes.
"Sometimes you'll find big ginseng in kudzu, but I'm more careful there than I used to be - got into an angry hornet's nest not ttoo long ago."
Every
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d pressure, insomnia, skin eruptions and tachycardia (rapid heart rate).
In extreme cases, she says, it can also lead to renal (kidney) failure. She also cites a study that shows that ginseng production workers in Brazil have been shown to have a much higher incidence of asthma.
"We in the medical community don't recommend it," she says.
Is ginseng getting scarce? It's hard to know.
Susan Shay echoes James Moore's words: "It's much harder to find now. It used to be abundant."
" Ginseng hunters have almost eradicated a national treasure," says Davison, the UT nurse practitioner.
Yet Reeves says it's becoming more common. "It thrives in areas of timber harvest," he says.
Ginseng is labeled as threatened in Tennessee, which means although not legally considered endangered yet, it is in danger of becoming so. Because it is profitable and a commercial venture, the plant is monitored by the Convention in Trade in Endangered Species of Wildlife Fauna and Flora (CITES), Reeves says.
There's also the question of whether the ginseng hunters themselves are becoming scarce. Nintendo and malls call many of today's teens more loudly than the local ridges with their hollows, snakes, poison ivy and hornets.
At $253 per pound of dry weight, ginseng may not be gold, but it does buy a pile of Christmas presents. By mid-October, Moore had made about $1,500 and planned to buy "something nice for my wife. She's the one lets me go hunt," he says.
But money is only one reason Moore is out here on a sparkling early October day. He talks about the birds he sees, the deer, the quiet.
"Sometimes I'll bring someone out with me, but if they're only in it for the money, that's the last time they'll be there," he says. "There's a lot of people who're just in for the money, but I'm in it for the love of being out in the woods. "This is how I was raised up."
- BY : Wynne Brown News-Sentinel staff writer
- SOURCE :The Knoxville News-Sentinel1995.01.29
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