The Cascara Tree in British Columbia by John Davidson.

A 1942 British Columbian Govt. publication discusses how to and not to harvest Cascara Sagrada, how to coppice and cultivate the native bush, and then offers an even-handed method for regulating wildcrafting. A good model for dealing with current over picking.

Michael’s Commentary: The revised version of the booklet, published in 1942 by the Ministry of Agriculture of British Columbia, offers a remarkably reasonable methodology for the sustained harvesting of Rhamnus purshiana for the world’s drug trade, assessing and correcting damages and defining methods for planting an over-harvested botanical…plus revealing the little-known fact that the WOOD is equal in strength to the “official” bark. This even-handed and humane approach (…sooo Canadian) is one that should offer a model to alleviate some of the current problems of herb overharvesting.

Acrobat file (.pdf) 32 pages, 10 illustrations, legislative regulations and a sample picker’s tag. 470K