Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1892 — In the Blue Ridge. [ARTICLE]

In the Blue Ridge.

An important North Carolina in,lnstry is the collecting aud preparing of roots and herbs for s ile to wholesale ‘druggists and exporters. This industry gives employment to over thirty thousand people in the Blue Ridge. On the Atlantic slope of the Blue Ridge grow no less than two thousand two hundred varieties of plants known to materia medica; this fact coming to the notice of two Shrewd business men of Statesville, they began the business of collecting, preparing, and exporting them. It is interesting to go through the imwarehouses of this firm. There are forty-four thousand square feet of floor space in all, and on this are stoied several hundred tons of roots, herbs, barks, gums, and mosses, some varieties in lots of many tons each. The yearly businfess of the firm amounts to one million five hundred thousand pounds. This mass is bought in by collectors or sent in by country merchants who act as agents for the firm. A certain knowledge of herbs, how and what season to secure them, is a necessary outfit for the collector. The greater part of the gatherers live in mountains in small log cabins of one room, and pursue their novel calling in the shadow of the deep cliffs, under the mighty forests, on the open summits of the lofty peaks, or in the deep gorges of the great Appalachian chain. In these almost inaccessible solitudes the ginseng, snake root, lobelia, blood root, mandrake, unicorn root, and scores of other varieties are found in abundance. These the mountaineer collects, takes to his cabin, and dries. When he has a sufficient cargo for his large, canvas-covered wagon, he hitches up his ancient mules and transports it over the mountain roads to the nearest town or settlement, where he exchanges it for tea, sugar, snuff, and tobacco.