Big Purple Dreams

Which page is most expressive of the exemplary features of "a most delicious vegetable"?

This first one from the 1898 Livingston's Sons seed catalog?

 Or this page from the dreary 1899 Livingston's Seeds catalog? :-)

Stacking the deck is fun :-)

Next Year, 1900, Life Returns!

Phew!  Someone saw the light.  One year after the drab eviscerated corn adorned the back cover came this collection back there. 

 The cover is an unambiguous celebration of the Livingston's Seed new tomato, Magnus!  Notice the twine trying to hold up the heavy truss of fruit?

The onion and parsley are printed with only two colors I think.  Nice, very nice, for the money. 

The other day I showed you the fantastic carrot engraving.  This radish illustration is a similar, though less whimsical, production.      
It makes it easy for you to compare features.  It is a clear presentation of useful information.

Confession: I am a sucker for ribbon labels :-)

While I am in my catalog critique mood, look at this illustration of the Magnus tomato from inside the catalog.   Pathetic, isn't it?  This catalog is straddling the engraving/photo illustration divide.

They must have seen this is so much less inviting than the engravings.

I suppose having the company seen as forward thinking, using photography, was more important.

The catalog used both in 1900.

Tomatoes are not the easiest vegetable to represent in a catalog without color.  Especially as men like A.W. Livingston bred them to be smooth, featureless globes. 

 Below is an earlier engraving.  I find it much more lively.  Their plumpness just plumps at you!  The perky little calyx look like crowns.

More tomorrow...probably straying into tomato land, but maybe not.

Livingston's: Lush to Lifeless

Compare this catalog cover to yesterday's farmer.  This one is sad.  It is a nice idea, Norman Rockwell-ish...but the artist killed it.  Dead.  The farmer yesterday was stiff, but upbeat because of the Victorian embellishments and color!  Today, the story that should draw you in is squashed by the awkward draftsmanship and the color.  The kid in this one looks weird.  Yuck.  

Good idea, though!  

Something happened in the reorganization when the name changed from Livingston's Sons to Livingston's Seeds.

Importantly, however, this cover reflects a big step towards 20th century style illustration on the part of the artist at a time visual embellishment was still holding its own!  (Not that I welcome a less "flowery" style in seed catalogs...) Inside, the deathly b&w photos of vegies are beginning to appear among the more lively engravings as well.

Let's compare the joie of the 1898 and 1899 back covers.

Here is the back cover that goes with the above 1899 farmer.

It looks like a morgue photo.  Makes its point well, if you don't fall asleep before getting there.

Here is the back cover from 1898!  Stiff, perhaps, but far from dead! 

I think I will back up in time and wallow in some more exuberant illustrations.

1895 - A. W. Livingston's Sons

1895 - Source: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org

Interesting name!  Livingston's Sons.  I have never seen a company named like that, have you?  

I have jumped into an old seed company's history after the son has taken the reins.  But this cover with its phrasing just caught my fancy.

Consider this posting, with the brief history below, an introduction to the family, with many nice images from catalogs to follow.  AND, since A.W. is very important in the history of tomatoes, be expecting some very lush lithographs as well as interesting tomato gossip.

Source: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org

This envelope is unusual.  It is addressed to Livingston's Sons from another seedsman, Nordlinger, an importer. 

I so like the whimsical carrot page...bunches hanging on nails with their names in fancy-dan script! Those lovely concentric circles around the little Golden Ball's root end!!

The following text history is from the still extant company web site!

Livingston Seed was founded in 1850 by Alexander Livingston. Mr. Livingston developed the first reliable tomato variety and cultivated a total of 31 varieties under the name “Buckeye Garden Seed Company”. The first of these was the Paragon, introduced in 1870. However, in Mr. Livingston’s day tomatoes were generally thought poisonous. In fact, tomatoes were prized more as exotic ornamentals than edibles.

As Buckeye Garden Seed Company, Mr. Livingston first tried hybridization, and eventually began a careful selection of traits from generation to generation. Eventually his hard work fine-tuned the tomato into the fruit we know today.

With the economic crash of 1876, the company filed for bankruptcy. It was Mr. Livingston’s son, Robert who reformed the company under the name “A.W. Livingston’s Sons” and continued his father’s success. In 1898, the company was incorporated as “Livingston’s Seed Company” and continued as a family run business until 1979. Alexander Livingston’s great-grandson, Alan, sold the business to Mr. Forest Randolph. He changed the name to “Superior Seed Company”, but Mr. Randolph’s ownership was brief. By 1980 Mr. Robert Johnston had acquired the company and changed the name back to Livingston Seed Company.

Over the years, Livingston Seed has evolved greatly. Originally the business was only in bulk seed offering grass seed, vegetable, and flower seed, as well as bulk seed displays. As the company grew, Mr. Johnston saw opportunity in the packet seed market. In 1998 he began to develop a seed packet line which would eventually grow to include 12 different collections and over 500 varieties.

Today, Livingston Seed offers an expansive range of vegetable and flower seeds in both packets and bulk, as well as many display options. Livingston Seed has continued to search out new varieties, merchandising, and packaging all designed with you and your customer in mind.

Fossil Seeds

Help!  Summer has intruded upon my ability to concentrate.  I have lost the push to keep going on popcorn and somehow wandered into fossil seeds.  I have a few fossils, but no seeds.  A school favorite is fossilized turtle poop from Florida.  "Does anyone know what a coprolite might be?" Kid responses when they find out what they are examining  always have the class in an uproar :-)

The following are all seeds though!

London Clay fossil seeds found 14th July 2009 at Eastchurch - Sheppey  -  from schming2001

Some 350 named species of plant have been found, making the London Clay flora one of the world's most diverse for fossil seeds and fruits.

Link: Nice old photos, too  http://www.bucksgeology.org.uk/london_clay.html

Link: 1840- A history of the fossil fruits and seeds of the London clay  By James Scott Bowerbank

Do a fossil seed search on ebay and you will have quite a choice!

SEED SAMARA

Oligocene, Muddy Creek Formation

Beaverhead County, Montana

** This is a compression fossil seed from a deciduous tree over 25 million years ago.  A "samara" is a seed fruit with a flattened wing that enables the seed to be transported longer distances by the wind.  Most of us are familiar with those ubiquitous maple seed "helicopters that seem to spin their way down to the pavement from the branches.  That "helicopter" is properly called a "samara".  Some samaras have a structure attaching two different seeds to give them the ability to spin while others are singles and depend upon random movement by gusts of wind or breeze.  This very well preserved samara measures .5 inch in length on a plate 2 inches square and 3/8 inch thick.

Designer Popcorn Seeds

Before you read anything, just look at this.

Astonishing, isn't it?  You must go to this Business Insider article to get you socks knocked off with more amazingly beautiful photos plus the story behind the man who bred this variety, Glass Gem! Probably far from the translucent beauty of the kernels above, "...rainbow seed originally came from a crossing of "Pawnee miniature popcorns with an Osage red flour corn and also another Osage corn called ‘Greyhorse.’"  

The reason I called this post Designer Seeds is I read this picture went viral a few years ago (missed me).  It just was a great match for what people wanted.

That's enough for today.  The rest can wait.  Go enjoy the article!  

A Break from Pop Corn: An Awesome 1890s Scrapbook

I just didn't feel pop cornish yesterday so the last posting about pop corn varieties, past and present as "heirloom" offerings, didn't get off the drawing board.

Here is something nicer.  Time travel to when creating scrapbooks was great fun and filled many hours with the hunt for colorful illustrations, choosing of the favorites, deciding which went best on a page...not to mention little bottles of mucilage.

This is the 1890s.  Just the right time for my gram to have done it as a little girl.

This is an extraordinary collection.  Someone's relatives got the good catalogs!!