Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 19, 1993 TAG: 9310190131
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN BARNES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Short
James Stanley Hickman and Brian Walter Campbell, both of Buchanan, were sentenced by Bedford County General District Court Judge James Farmer to a suspended 30-day jail term and fined $100 for poaching ginseng and $250 for trespassing on posted private land.
The two men wandered onto private property off Virginia 640, near Suck Mountain, on June 30 and gathered two-thirds of a pound of ginseng. That amount would bring almost $160 on the ginseng market. The men were running almost two months ahead of the legal season.
Hickman, 46, and Campbell, 24, pleaded guilty to both charges.
Ginseng is a wild root known for its healing and supposed aphrodisiac powers. The plant flourishes in only a handful of mountainous areas around the world, including Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.
Ginseng hunters may wander the woods on state-owned and private property beginning Aug. 15. National Forest lands open up a month later, but there is not a legal season for picking the roots along the Blue Ridge Parkway or other National Park lands. Hunters must have the permission of private landowners to wander on their property.