The Homesteader's Herbal Companion is a beautiful guide for the modern day homesteader. From learning how to incorporate herbs and essential oils around your home, to learning how to enhance your family's health and well-being, this book is the go-to resource for those wishing to live a more natural homesteading lifestyle. This book takes readers through the basics of herbalism, including the different types of herbs and their uses. It also breaks down how herbs are used in tinctures, salves, essential oils, and infused oils. You'll learn how to efficiently incorporate herbs into your lifestyle, creating your own herbal remedy cabinet for yourself and for your livestock as well. And through encouragement and evidence-based information, you'll be confident using herbs, cooking with herbs, and sharing your herbal products with your friends and family. With an array of beautiful photos and easy to read terminology, just about any homesteader, new or seasoned, can learn from The Homesteader's Herbal Companion, and finally feel comfortable incorporating the many wonderful qualities of herbs around their homes and homesteads.

Wild American Ginseng, America's most famous medicinal plant, is in trouble. In plain prose, James McGraw explains why as he translates the latest in ecological and conservation science findings on this unassuming understory herb. As the world's foremost authority on wild ginseng, McGraw is uniquely poised to present this story based on over twenty years of uninterrupted field research. McGraw traces the dramatic ecological history of ginseng in North America, documenting the ginseng-centric view of a world increasingly dominated by both direct and indirect actions of humans. Far more than a story of a single plant species, ginseng becomes a parable, a canary in a coal mine, for what is happening to our dwindling wild species across the globe. Documenting lingchi (death by a thousand cuts) in human interactions with wild species, McGraw shows us the evidence of our slowly eroding biodiversity and our diminishing global biotreasury. Beyond merely documenting our destruction of nature, McGraw also offers a pathway to an optimistic future for ginseng and the wild species with whom we share the planet. He illuminates how a dramatic expansion of our commitment to sharing the planet with our fellow planetary companions is the key to preservation; and now is the time to do so.