RANICAR

Sydney Ranicar and his friend Malcolm MacCallum came to Stanhope in 1934 to farm, and in particular to grow ginseng. Ranicar, aged about 35, came originally from Springfield House, Wigan, Lancashire, England; and MacCallum, from Scotland; both came to Stanhope from Ontario, where ginseng had been grown for some time. It is a herb belonging to the genus Aralia, with a thick fleshy aromatic root, growing wild in woodlands throughout the United States and southern Canada, including P.E.I., and also in China and Korea. Ginseng is used medicinally for a variety of ailments and as an aphrodisiac; there is an excellent market for it. John Stewart, in his An Account of Prince Edward Island, 1806, p. 29-58, said, Ginseng in great plenty in forest in large timber and good soil. However, he was apparently referring to Aralia nudicaulis or Sarsaparilla, a close relative of ginseng, with berries used for wine-making; but true ginseng, Panex quinquefolius, and a dwarf form, Panex trifolius, do indeed grow wild and fairly widespread on the Island.

Having been told that the soil of P.E.I., and particularly of Stanhope, was well-suited for growing ginseng, Sydney Ranicar bought land on the north side of the Stanhope East Road from Neil W. Higgins in August, 1934; this land, of about 55 acres, between the 34/35 lotline and the John Martin property, had been in the Higgins family for generations and before that had been owned by the Lawsons. Ranicar and MacCallum, both unmarried, arrived with their furniture and ginseng roots in a big closed-in truck. They bought a horse, a cow, and a pig; and from Ray Carr, a pair of foxes. The house and farm buildings needed repairs and fox pens had to be built, so Harry Lawson was hired to help them, for $1.25 a day; later, when they had their sale, Harry was paid $5 for the day’s work —— a small fortune in those days. Ranicar must have been a very big man: when Harry was to clean out their well, he was lent a pair of Ranicar’s rubber boots which he could pull on right over his own boots. Wells in those days were not bored but dug, and the sides stoned down sometimes as much as 30 or 40 feet, and 6 feet in diameter; they needed cleaning out periodically. The property cost Sydney Ranicar $1165.00 and there was a mortgage for $600 to James Haslam.

The two partners were successful in growing ginseng and were said to have made quite a lot of money with it. However, with the formation in 1937 of the P.E.I. National Park, many farms along the North Shore were expropriated, among them the entire farm of Ranicar and MacCallum. They received $1,600 for 40 acres of cleared land, $450 for 15 acres of scrub woodland, and $1,140 for the farm house and other buildings; they also got extra compensation from the

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