sang hunting

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"The Cherokee speak of the plant as being a sentient being...
able to make itself invisible to those unworthy to gather it."
William Bartram, 1791



Walking the woods and hollows looking for ginseng or "sang" has been a tradition among the country folk all up and down the length of Appalachia. From the hill country of southern Ohio over into West Virginia down thru Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina, heading into the woods to dig a little Christmas money or maybe shoe money has been around as long as people have walked these woods. One story that is never told is the fact that Daniel Boone spent a year digging ginseng and buying it from white explorers and natives, eventualy filling an entire flatboat with 12 tons of seng, worth a small fortune at the time. Unfortunately a boat wreck on the Ohio got most of his collection wet and he lost money on the deal, otherwise the regions history might have been written quite differently. While searching thru my own family tree I found several references to digging sang. I found a story told by Mrs. Fannie Coomer, born in 1833,in which she spoke of spinning cloth from their own sheep, of making their own clothing, quilts,raising livestock, and growing their own food. And if something extra was needed, of digging ginseng for some spending money. My own grandfather took me sang hunting when I was young and my father filled the woods behind our home with beds of ginseng. Now every fall I head into the woods to follow in this tradition. Some years digging just a bit for something to do, and in lean years, digging harder for that elusive Christmas cash.
Ginseng itself thrives in what is called the Appalachian mixed mesophytic forest. But what makes ginseng so hard to find is while you may find the occasional plant here and there thruout this vast forest type, to find a sackfull (or even a pocketfull for that matter)you must hunt out little subtypes of forest, little pockets of just the right habitat. All the books say look on a north facing slope but it's a bit more complicated than that. While a north facing slope may be a good place to start, any slope will hold ginseng if it's like the words of that old bluegrass song,"where the sun comes up about ten in the morning, and the sun goes down about 3 in the day". What ginseng likes best are deep cool rich coves and hollows in already rich cool woods. The best ginseng woods are dominated by maples with poplar mixed in. Woods predominated by oaks and hickories are in my experience poor places to find alot of ginseng. A better and easier way to find the right places to hunt tho is to look for the right companion plants. Any type of cohosh, goldenseal, ramps, and maidenhair fern are good indicators of guality ginseng habitat. Of these maidenhair fern may be the best, but around here at least, ginseng is almost more of an indicator of maidenhair fern as it is rare. The best, most sure fire, companion plant though is baneberry or "dolleyes". A good way to scout a big block of new woods is to cruise thru fairly fast looking for baneberry and then when you find some stop and look for the harder to find ginseng plants. You may find a little ginseng without baneberry or a little baneberry without ginseng but the only reason you will find alot of baneberry without ginseng is that someone has dug the ginseng already.
Ginseng has been used by the Chinese for over 5000 years as a general cure all and also specifically by herbalists to treat problems with a person's "Yin" and "Yang" and bring them into balance. Lately several studies have shown ginseng may indeed have health benifits but these still ignore the big picture of restoring general well being and balance that the Chinese actually use the root for. The Cherokee used ginseng for colic, dysentry, and headache, and described it as "the little man", amazingly similar to "man root" which is how the Chinese described the root.
In 1702 a Father Jartoux was in china and observed the valuable trade in and uses of ginseng there, later in 1716 while working with Iroquois in the North America he discovered the plant growing here. Fur traders began gathering the valuable root and buying it from the Native Americans and a tradition in North America was born. John Jacob Astor sent a ship loaded with fur and ginseng and reportably made $55,000, the equivalent of millions today. Most ginseng today is still bought by a network of small fur buyers which in turn sell to larger traveling dealers which then sell to the relatively few exporters. By the time the root finds the consumer in China it sells for many times the $300 to $500 dollars a pound a digger here may receive.
Ginseng is considered rare and the harvest is regulated in the different states by a confining the harvest to a short season of just a few short weeks prior to the top turning yellow and dying in the fall. It's my experience that ginseng seems just about as plentiful now as when I was a boy, that the level of hard work combined with itimate knowledge of the forest required to harvest it serves even better than a season to limit overharvesting. The next time your out for a hike in early autumn and meet an oldtimer in bib overalls with a homemade knapsack and a long digger for a walking stick strike up a conversation, you might just connect with a bit of Appalachia's grand old past.
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A young two prong ginseng plant, each set of leaflets on a plant is called a prong. Only plants that have large three or four prongs should be harvested.
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Ginseng turning yellow in the fall. The week or two when the tops turn yellow before dying is "prime time" for digging, making the plants easier to spot in the dense undergrowth.
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Some ramps. A prime indicator of good woods in the springtime, though they die down by ginseng digging time they are a great scouting tool.
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Jack in the Pulpit
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Squaw Root is usually a sign of a hillside not really suitable for ginseng greatness though the odd plant may be found there.
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Good ginseng territory is allmost always good terrapin territory as well.
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A morning's hunt layed out on a log at lunchtime.
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A giant with two big four prong tops growing off the same root.
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Baneberry
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A mature plant with red berries. Ginseng should not be harvested before the berries mature.
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A very old ginseng root
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Another mid thigh-high giant
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Maidenhair fern
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Baneberry. Don't eat those pretty berries by the way, they will stop your heart and kill you!
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Three and a half pounds of dried ginseng. A entire years collection for me from last year.
$1400 at todays price
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A ginseng top thats been browsed by deer. Allmost every hunt I'll find several of these mangled tops. I've also been digging one root and rolled out another that I didn't know was there because the top was browsed off or the plant was simply dormant that year. There is alot more of this kind of ginseng out there than one might think. I've also been digging one plant and dug another too close to leave undisturbed that I thought was a seedling that I would replant only to find a big root but tiny set of root scars on top, like the top of the root had been broken off or eaten by an animal and was regrowing. I think these types of ginseng also help keep the plant from being dug out.