Note 39 — Chapter XXXIX
Reading edition
Kämpfer had seen the ginseng cultivated in gardens in Japan, but it was not supposed to possess the virtues of the Chinese article. Father Jontoux, one of the Jesuit missionaries in China, employed by the emperor in preparing a map of the region north of the great wall, had an opportunity to see the ginseng growing wild. He sent home, in 1711, a full account of it, with drawings (which may be found in “Voyages au Nord,” vol. iv), and suggested, from the similarity of the climate, that the same plant might be found in Canada, as it soon was by the Jesuit missionaries there.