I have left until the last the commodity for which Song-do is famous, and which is the chief source of its prosperity--ginseng. _Panax Ginseng_ or _quinquefolia_ (?) is, as its name imports, a “panacea.” No one can be in the Far East for many days without hearing of this root and its virtues. No drug in the British Pharmacopœia rivals with us the estimation in which this is held by the Chinese. It is a tonic, a febrifuge, a stomachic, the very elixir of life, taken spasmodically or regularly in Chinese wine by most Chinese who can afford it. It is one of the most valuable articles which Korea exports, and one great source of its revenue. In the steamer in which I left Chemulpo there was a consignment of it worth $140,000. But valuable as the cultivated root is, it is nothing to the value of the wild, which grows in Northern Korea, a single specimen of which has been sold for £40! It is chiefly found in the Kang-ge Mountains; but it is rare, and the search so often ends in failure, that the common people credit it with magical properties, and believe that only men of pure lives can find it. The ginseng season was at its height. People talked, thought, and dreamed ginseng, for the risks of its six or seven years’ growth were over, and the root was actually in the factory. I went to several ginseng farms, and also saw the different stages of the manufacturing process, and received the same impression as in Siberia, that if industry were lucrative, and the Korean were sure of his earnings, he would be an industrious and even a thrifty person. All round Song-do are carefully fenced farms on which ginseng is grown with great care and exquisite neatness on beds 18 inches wide, 2 feet high, and neatly bordered with slates. It is sown in April, transplanted in the following spring, and again in three years into specially prepared ground, not recently cultivated, and which has not been used for ginseng culture for seven years. Up to the second year the plant has only two leaves. In the fourth year it is six inches high with four leaves, standing out at right angles from the stalk. It reaches maturity in the sixth or seventh year. During its growth it is sheltered from both wind and sun by well-made reed roofs with blinds, which are raised or lowered as may be required. When the root is taken up it is known as “white ginseng,” and is bought by merchants, who get it “manufactured,” about 3¹⁄₄ _catties_ of the fresh root making one _cattie_ of “red” or commercial ginseng. The grower pays a tax of 20 cents per _cattie_, and the merchant 16 dollars a _cattie_ for the root as received from the manufacturer.