SATISFYING THE REQUIREMENTS OF MEDICINAL PLANT CULTIVATION

Early in the Christian era, gardens of food, culinary and medicinal plants were established in connection with monasteries in various parts of Europe, and the knowledge of many medicinally important plants were kept alive during the dark ages. Certain drugs are now obtained almost exclusively from cultivated plants. Among these are cardamon, ginger, cinnamon, fennel, cinchona, opium and linseed. In other cases both wild and cultivated plants are used.

In many cases it is advisable to cultivate the medicinal plant because of the improved quality of the drug. The improvement may be as a result of confining collection to species, varieties or hybrids which have the desired characters as in case of aconite, cinnamon, valerian, fennel, etc., or due to better development of the plants owing to improved conditions of the soil, better agricultural practices, control of fungi and insect pests etc., or due to better facilities of treatment after collection e.g. drying at a proper temperature as in case of digitalis, valerian, and belladonna, or peeling of cinnamon and ginger. The practices and techniques employed in cultivating drug plants are essentially similar to those employed in raising other crops.

Likewise, the problems that plague the producer of drug plants are similar to those met in producing food or other crops, although they are more numerous in case of drug plants. Not only must the producer of these plants contend with the usual problems of irrigation, fertilizing the soil, weeding and the

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