In all other respects, however, Cheng is completely forthcoming. Over a barrel of dried ginseng in the reception room, he explains that the best ginseng tends to be short and stocky, or larger than average. So a buyer will estimate what percentage of a farmer’s lot is composed of plants with either of these characteristics. Since each part of the root has a different value, the buyer will also estimate the percentages in a lot of prong, fibre, and body — the latter being the most valuable — and pay accordingly.

As Cheng explains this system, he runs his hands through the barrel of dried ginseng. Soon he begins to wax beatifically about its pungent aroma, much as Bradley had done. “You can take this ginseng to a lab and prove that it has the highest concentration of the active ingredient, which, believe me, people have done. But when people in Asia say they prefer this ginseng, it’s not because of its medical properties. They love the taste. It’s like fine wine and terroir. Connoisseurs can taste when it’s grown in perfect conditions, and those conditions exist in Ontario.”

We sit, and begin to talk about the current free fall in prices for Ontario ginseng. While Cheng agrees that Bradley’s complaint about counterfeit Ontario ginseng is legitimate — “Even I, a seasoned buyer, couldn’t tell by sight if a barrel had some Chinese-grown quinquefolius mixed in” — he says there are other factors. First, the Ontario in-dustry grew too fast too soon. “In the mid-’80s, there were only a few farmers growing ginseng in small plots. Suddenly, with the tobacco-reduction programs, everyone was getting into it. It’s no wonder the price fell.” He also points to the degree of corruption and red tape in China. “It is physically very difficult to get Ontario ginseng into China, and when a non-essential product is difficult to obtain, people turn to different products, and the price falls.” Finally, he says that the problems facing Ontario ginseng farmers are the same as those facing ginseng farmers in China and Korea. In Asia, ginseng remains very popular among the elderly, and moderately popular among the middle-aged. Young Asians, how-ever, are naturally turning to more global products, and are more apt to sip a Red Bull or a Starbucks for a quick pick-me-up.

“Basically,” he told me, “the same thing that’s happening to Canadian-grown ginseng is happening to Chinese-grown ginseng. It’s sad, really.”

In a Goliath example of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, the Ontario government, around the time it was making it illegal to pick ginseng, gave $6.9 million to a pharmacologist at the University of Western Ontario to conduct ginseng research. Edmund Lui, a Hong Kong native, also received funds in kind from both the university and the private sector (mostly health product manufacturers and the Ontario Ginseng Growers Association), meaning that he now has a whopping $20 million for a study that just might save the province’s ginseng industry.

Ginseng, as Lui explained to me, works because of its phytochemicals, namely sugarlike substances called polysaccharides, and a series of organic molecules found only in ginseng that are called, appropriately enough, ginsenosides. There are about thirty different ginsenosides (with names like Ra, Rb, Rf, Rh1, etc.), and it is the ginsenosidal makeup of each strain that accounts for its actions. For example: the fact that Asian ginseng is considered a stimulant and American ginseng a calmative is due to the mix of ginsenosides and polysaccharides found in each. Marcus Cheng told me that one strain of ginseng, found growing wild near Changbai Mountain in Jilin province, is especially believed to prolong life; if this is true, again it is because of the specific mix of ginsenosides and polysaccharides it contains.

Lui, meanwhile, is trying to identify and produce extracts of ginseng that fight specific ailments. There is already some evidence that ginsenoside Rg3 is primarily responsible for the root’s anti-cancerous effect. Ginseng’s polysaccharides, meanwhile, account for its ability to stimulate the immune system to ward off colds — the popular anti-cold remedy Cold-FX, which sells for a small fortune in drugstores, is nothing more than a polysaccharide-enriched extract of ginseng. Yet if Lui could also determine which strain or extract fights Alzheimer’s, which combats diabetes, and which affects blood pressure (the list could go on and on, ginseng having as many uses as there are ailments), then the marketing of ginseng would change considerably.

“The idea is to develop strains of ginseng that fight specific illnesses,” Lui told me. “When we can start making specific claims about different types of ginseng, then ginseng goes from being a traditional Chinese medicine to a non-traditional Western pharmaceutical. It stops being a herbal tonic and starts being a drug. And when this happens, it will be worth ten times as much.” The problem, of course, is that by the time Lui finishes his study (assuming he does succeed), the dropping price of ginseng might have irrevocably altered the industry in Ontario.

Toward the end of my day with Doug Bradley, he gets a call advising him that the Mexican labourers he uses to pick seeds and flowers from his three-year-old plants have accidentally poured diesel fuel into the hydraulic fluid reservoir of a ride-on work vehicle called a Skid Steer. (“It’s an easy thing to do,” he says.) We drive to the plot where the mistake was made, and as he irons out the problem I wait near a row of dilapidated tobacco kilns. Through a border of maple trees, I can see a mist of pollen rising from a field of rye planted by Bradley.

He comes back over, and we start talking about the future of ginseng farming in Ontario. I ask him, “How low will the price have to drop before you stop farming ginseng?”