From what I've read, mother nature will stratify the seed (as long as it doesn't get eaten). Ginseng seed takes 18 months to germinate. Stratified seed has just been stored by methods that emulate mother nature's way. Wish there was an easier (and quicker) way for you!! You probably have already read much info, but here's a link that contains info on seeding Ginseng:

Ginseng

thanks Flowerlover.
I feel kind of sorry for my little sad patch. THe text speaks of sowing thousands of seeds and I probably have maybe 20 berries at best.
THe good news is that many of my plants are sporting three or more 'prongs' or groups of leaves, so I can guess they are at least 5-9 years old and pretty well established.
Must have dormant waiting patiently for me to uncover them!

Hi dirtgirl,
I don't know anything about ginseng, but was wondering.....maybe we have it here on our property??? Would I look for a low-lying plant that has berries? Anything else that might help lead me to it? Thanks.

Well, the fact that I even recognized it at all is amazing, but something just didn't look right about those plants. Like something I'd seen in a book or something, but never in my own woods. It is VERY similar to Virginia creeper (but not a vine), with a touch of young hickory tree added in. Mine are not quite knee-high with a very upright habit. The leaflets are very deep green and finely serrated, which helps if you need to diffentiate from va. creeper, which tends to have coarser serrations. RIght now a lot of my va. creeper is yellowing out and blotching up for fall. In fact, although I can easily tell the difference now and spot ginseng at a glance (and I am busily checking other areas now incase others have reemerged after the fires) at first I had to walk around looking back and forth at certain young hickories and some woodbines to look for differences.
I'd say look up pictures on the web and then memorize them. It might help to also find out what plants grow in the same preferred habitat as ginseng. My patch is about 15 paces from my goldenseal...I was probably tromping back and forth on ginseng roots when I kept clearing the honeysuckle from the goldenseal. Never knew it.

So keep an eye out on those cleared spaces!

Just remove the red berry pulp and plant the seed about 1/2 inch in the soil. I have been doing that with wild ginseng here on my property and I had several plants coming up last year.

Well, we will see what nature does when left to her own designs...I let the berries stay on the plant until they would drop off when lightly touched, and then placed them under the parent plant with something like a half-inch of soil/litter on top.
When do the plants first appear in the spring, anyway?