When I was a young man growing up in Missouri, we used to hunt Gin-seng root. Once dried it can be sold by the pound and will often fetch several hundred dollars a pound. It takes a lot of effort to take care of wild gin-seng.

You can't just pick the plant, cut the root and go about your day.

You need to pick it during the right season, and replant the seeds that grow on the plant in areas around the area where you picked the wild plant. This will keep the wild plant regrowing year after year, and will grow enough that plants can mature to a ripe enough age. Ginseng is an endangered species, and due to its value some hunters will pull it without replanting the red seeds. Worse they sometimes try to take the seeds and plant them in a different location where they can control the harvest. This often times leeds to the plants not coming up at all or coming up stunted in growth due to not growing in ideal conditions where the family of plants has grown for generations.

These days gin-seng pops up everywhere from teas to vitamins and more(seeChinese Herbs and Alternative Remedies). Today, I get a dose of it when I tank Ginko Biloba, a combination of Ginseng and biloba. The ginseng will definitely give you energy, its a stimulant like cafeine, the biloba combined with it is thought to help with memory and I need more help with every day that goes by!

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