There’s Gold in West Virginia Hills; It’s Spelled Ginseng : Mystic lore: The dried brown root brings hundreds of dollars a pound in the Far East. It helps a lot of people make extra cash.

Ginseng, that mysterious root of supposed vitality and health, promises riches and mystical powers for those willing to plunge into the darkest corners of Appalachia’s toughest terrain.

“The weedier, the snakier-looking place you can get into is where you will find the ginseng,” says Jack Baisden, a ginseng buyer in Verdunville. “It’s in deep, dark hills, back in the hollows.”

Ginseng has been celebrated in the Orient for centuries for its medicinal powers, but it’s part of mountain lore in Appalachia.

In 1992, ginseng sold for about $250 a pound in the United States and as much as $600 a pound in the Far East.

So it’s no wonder the hills are alive with folks ‘senging.

“Some people make it pretty much a full-time profession,” said Bob Whipkey, an assistant administrative forester with the West Virginia Division of Forestry.

William Slagle, who farms about five acres of ginseng in Bruceton Mills, said, “It’s like when prospectors used to go looking for gold and silver, but it’s worth more than silver. If you find a good patch of ‘seng you can make a thousand bucks quickly”

Marie Sargent, a 74-year-old Verdunville grandmother, says she makes about $500 a year Christmas money digging and selling ginseng in the fall.

“I get out and run the hills and go and go,” she said.

Dick Lambert, who trades in ginseng at his canoe rental business in Fredericksburg, Ind., said, “Some people spend the whole season in the woods and will make $2,000, $3,000 a season.”

The wiry root, green when harvested but brown when dried, is powdered for capsules, salves, teas, soft drinks, extracts and food flavorings. Some say it is good for arthritis, rheumatism, liver problems and even AIDS.

Mountain people say wild ginseng soothes nerves, calms upset stomachs and, yes, excites the libido.

But ginseng is not approved as a drug in the United States despite its health claims, said William Studer, executive director of the American Ginseng Society in Brooklyn, Mich.

“Your body can resist infections if your HDL cholesterol is high enough,” Studer said. “American ginseng is one way to increase your level quickly.”

Jimmy Mason of San Francisco, a former intravenous drug user who tested positive for the AIDS virus in 1987, says he started taking American ginseng in 1989 after two years on AZT.

“In a matter of two months after I stopped taking AZT and started taking ginseng, my T-cell count went up for the first time,” Mason said. “My doctors think it’s marvelous.”

The plant is on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s endangered species list. Ginseng digging, buying and exporting is regulated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Customs Service and state agencies across Appalachia.

Some state laws require diggers to plant ginseng’s bright-red berries immediately after they remove the root.

The root is cleaned and dried before sale at ginseng weighing stations, where it is recorded for state authorities before export.

Ginseng is sold by size, shape, color and age in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and China.

Ginseng once grew abundantly in Asia, but China now produces less than 100 pounds of wild ginseng a year, at up to $5,000 a pound, said Paul Hsu, owner of Hsu’s Ginseng Enterprises Inc. of Wausau, Wis., a grower and exporter.

Exporting American ginseng is a $100-million enterprise, Hsu said.

“Wild ginseng is in high demand because it’s scarce. West Virginia is one of the main states where you can get it,” Hsu said.

Although West Virginia harvests most of the nation’s wild ginseng, about 95% of ginseng for export is cultivated in Marathon County, Wis.

Cultivated ginseng, although abundant, is not coveted like wild ginseng.

“It took me 10 years to get my first ginseng stalk to grow. It’s unpredictable,” Slagle said.

Slagle, a high school shop teacher, has encouraged students to raise ginseng.

He says that in the rural counties of West Virginia, teen-agers are as apt to discuss ginseng as football, and often buy their school clothes with their profits.

“Ginseng is high risk,” Slagle said. “It’s like the lottery. You usually lose, but when you win, you win big.”

Many Appalachian families have been harvesting ginseng for generations.

Marie Sargent, the ‘senging grandmother, began digging ginseng as a girl.

“My father would take me out in the woods and we would spend all day ‘senging,” she said. “I learned as a kid what ginseng looked like. And then later, my husband and I used to go out ‘senging. It’s become a family tradition.”

But there are plenty of hazards to hunting ginseng. Sargent stepped on a rattlesnake this season.

“I was just walking through the woods and I slipped and I looked down and there was a rattler staring back at me,” Sargent said. “That’s why I wear snakeproof pants and boots.”