More than just a walk in the woods:
A peek inside Robert Howe’s outdoor laboratory
Robert Howe is very happy to see his small rural property being used, at least in part, as a research & development laboratory in agroforestry. Over the last decade, since retiring as a senior Cégep administrator and settling on a small farm in Melbourne Township, he has had students, agronomists, teachers, and biologists visit his property.
“A few years ago,” he says, pointing to a piece of overgrown land that was once pasture, “two students from the Natural Sciences program at the Unversité du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) were here briefly. They were working on their postgraduate degrees. They plotted out a small patch of land to do a count of buckthorns.”
The common buckthorn is a flowering shrub that can grow up to 10 metres high. It is native to Europe and Asia, and was brought to North America as a decorative plant over a century ago. It adapted so well to our climate that it is now classified as an invasive species.
“I told them they were looking in the wrong place, that they wouldn’t find any buckthorn just there,” he continues. “It turned out I was wrong; in a small square, 20 metres to a side, they counted 110.”
“For several years,” Robert Howe says, “one of the teachers in the agriculture department at the Cégep in Victoriaville would bring one of his classes up here every fall as part of his course on biodiversity. When you start training your eye to look, it is really quite remarkable how many life-forms you can see everywhere you look.”
Three quarters of the retired educator’s land is wooded. Some of his pasture land is used by a neighbouring farmer, but he used two acres of it to plant 1700 hardwoods: oak, walnut, elm, and ash. Interspersed among the saplings, he also planted 500 fiddlehead ferns and a number of black cohosh, a medicinal plant that, in spite of its name, produces white flowers. In the woods, a mixed hardwood forest, he has tried to establish ginseng, a plant that was once quite commonly found in southern Quebec.
For the last decade, Robert has been working with Cultur’innov, a cooperative based in Saint Camille, and with the Groupement forestier cooperative Stfrançois. It is this partnership that has made his property so interesting to researchers and students.
“When I first moved to Melbourne,” he says, “I took a number of courses and attended a number of conferences in Saint Camille on a variety of topics, from sharpening chain saws to medicinal plants. The course that really caught my attention was one given by a biologist, Stéphane Demers, who is a co-ordinator at Culture-innov.”
While Robert has had a long standing interest in wood (carpentry and carving provide a balance to his teaching at the Université de Sherbrooke), his curiosity about the medical possibilities of his woodlot might be traced back to the fact that his father was a pharmacist.
“Shortly after I took that course,” he continues, “professionals from Cultur’innov came here and, after walking the woods and taking soil samples, planted beds of Canada wild ginger, goldenseal, black cohosh, and ginseng.”
The green foliage of black cohosh, which is also known as black snakeroot, grows to a height of two feet but in midsummer it produces a stem that stretches upwards six feet or more and ends in clusters of small, white, sicklysweet flowers. The plant produces rhizomes (underground stems) and it is these rhizomes and the roots which are medicinally interesting. First Nations women used black cohosh to relieve birthing pains. They also used it to reduce menstrual pains and to minimize the effects of menopause. In the late 1800s German doctors discovered black cohosh and started using it in their clinics and hospitals.
Goldenseal, also known as orangeroot because of its yellow-coloured rhizomes, belongs to the same family of plants as buttercups and produces a single, red fruit that looks much like a raspberry. The ground roots of goldenseal are used to make salves, tinctures and tablets. The plant, among many other things, can be used as an anti-inflammatory and to help treat liver problems. The Cherokee, who originally lived in the southern Appalachians, used goldenseal to fight cancer. It has the unusual property of boosting the effects of other herbs and medicines. It also has the effect of masking the presence of other drugs. Goldenseal has been so extensively harvested in the wild that it is now an endangered species.
Canada wild ginger is a broad-leafed, low-growing plant which also produces a single flower, a little like a snapdragon. Its roots were used by First Nations people as a spice, but also as a remedy for a wide variety of ailments from earaches to digestive problems and from sore throats to urinary infections. Canada wild ginger is on the list of threatened species in Quebec.
Ginseng owes its name in English to the Chinese words for “man” and “root” which aptly describe the root system of the low-growing plant. The botanical name of the North American variety, Panax quinquefolius, refers to the healing properties of the plant, panax being the Greek word for “heal-all”, and to its five broad leaves. Ginseng has been “For several years,” Robert Howe says, “one of the teachers in the agriculture department at the Cégep in Victoriaville would bring one of his classes up here every fall as part of his course on biodiversity. When you start training your eye to look, it is really quite remarkable how many life-forms you can see everywhere you look.”
something of panacea in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries, and was prescribed for stress, trauma, anxiety, fatigue and also, as lots of web sites will tell you, as an aphrodisiac and cure for erectile dysfunction. Among some First Nations people, ginseng was used to cure female infertility and to permit pain-free birth. Wild ginseng is not easy to find; in the Salmon Creek watershed, an area of about three hundred square kilometers, a recent plant census turned up only five plants.
Yet, the plant was so abundant during colonial times under the French regime, that, for a brief period, it was Quebec’s second most important export to Europe after furs. In1718, a Jesuit priest wrote to his superiors about ginseng which grew in the St. Lawrence River valley and was known to be much in demand in China. As people rushed to harvest the plant, prices rose steeply—up to 25 times the original price. But greed led to problems. The plant’s aphrodisiac properties depended on it being harvested in September and allowed to dry slowly. The colonists began harvesting it as early as May and drying it in ovens. Canadian ginseng became worthless to the Chinese and what had been a very lucrative market totally collapsed.
Ginseng needs a long time to establish itself before it can be harvested. It also requires the right soil and the right amount of sunlight. By definition, a laboratory,
even an outdoor one specializing in agroforestry, can expect its experiments to yield a range of results.
“The black cohosh planted in sunny places was very successful,” Robert Howe says, pointing out a large patch of nondescript greenery among hardwood saplings. “The Canadian wild ginger was marginally successful, while the goldenseal and ginseng did not take at all. The biologists sowed the first set of ginseng plants in 2012 in a maple grove where the canopy created 80% shade. In 2015 they tried again, but this time with seeds, and under a canopy of 50% shade.”
Pointing to places on the forest floor where small pickets have been placed he notes, “They’re also carrying out other experiments, for example to see what levels of acidity the plant can tolerate, and what fertilizers might optimize its growth.”
“It will be another few years before we know how well the ginseng has caught this time. But the plants are growing,” he adds, pointing out a small, five-leafed plant on the forest floor.
Will ginseng ever again be the country’s second most important export? Most likely not.
“But,” Robert Howe points out, “similar experiments with ginseng are being carried out on a few other properties in the Townships.”