James Vick - Marketing the Garden Dream

Yesterday I posted a piece about the seed exhibits at the Columbian Exposition.  James Vick was acknowledged as a major contributor to Class 180 (seeds) in the guidebook.  Thirty years before, when he started his business in Rochester by importing seeds from Europe he was often disappointed with the quality.  That led to his establishing his own reliable seed fields.  His catalogs and writings were incredibly effective in popularizing his brand!

 

The above from The Selling of the English Garden: The 19th Century Seed Merchant, James Vick 

Good Links:

• The American Antiquarian Society page with info and great images from Vick's.
• The Selling of the English Garden: The 19th Century Seed Merchant, James Vick - a paper by Thomas J. Mickey for the Conference on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing
  
  from the above:
  

Rouncival, Not Runcible

The following flower mystery is from Benjamin Townsend's book:  

The Complete Seedsman: Shewing, the Best and Easiest Method for Raising and Cultivating Every Sort of Seed Belonging to a Kitchen and Flower-garden. With Necessary Instructions for Sowing of Berries, Mast, and Seeds of Evergreens, Forest-trees, and Such as are Proper for Improving of Land. Written at the Command of a Person of Honour, Volume 1

Read this flower seed list from 1726 England.  I recognize most. The older form of the modern common name is often close enough to make it known. Holly Oak is fascinating...and a few uses of the "f" for the "s" makes for amusing looking words.

But what the heck are Horns and Hedgehogs, Bottles of All Colors and Snails and Caterpillars?!

I am not going to look them up tonight as I am too amused by just imagining what they might be.

Horns and Hedgehogs, as well as Snails and Caterpillars are pairs of different plants grown together for the amusement value.

The descriptions in this catalog are below.  Not that they help much.

Children would still be fascinated by these.  Take note, seed companies! :-)

By the way, if you read the catalog you might like to know the following.  Me, I don't remember ever hearing the word rouncival.  Edward Lear's runcible spoon, yes...but not rouncival.

Rouncival

Large, of gigantic size. Certain large bones of antediluvian animals were at one time said to be the bones of the heroes who fell with Roland in Roncesvalles. “Rounceval peas” are those large peas called “marrowfats,”