This led to a search
for the dawn of bird history and for the very first pictures
preserved of them. On this book the author expended more work
than on any other she has ever written.
In 1911 two more books for which Mrs. Porter had gathered
material for long periods came to a conclusion on the same date:
"Music of the Wild" and "The Harvester." The latter of these was
a nature novel; the other a frank nature book, filled with all
outdoors--a special study of the sounds one hears in fields and
forests, and photographic reproductions of the musicians and
their instruments.
The idea of "The Harvester" was suggested to the author by an
editor who wanted a magazine article, with human interest in it,
about the ginseng diggers in her part of the country. Mr. Porter
had bought ginseng for years for a drug store he owned; there
were several people he knew still gathering it for market, and
growing it was becoming a good business all over the country.
Mrs. Porter learned from the United States Pharmacopaeia and from
various other sources that the drug was used mostly by the
Chinese, and with a wholly mistaken idea of its properties. The
strongest thing any medical work will say for ginseng is that it
is "A VERY MILD AND SOOTHING DRUG." It seems that the Chinese buy
and use it in enormous quantities, in the belief that it is a
remedy for almost every disease to which humanity is heir; that
it will prolong life, and that it is a wonderful stimulant.
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