Seed Selling History - Part 2 - Development of the Seed Catalogue

This article is an overview from the standpoint of a writer in 1900.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEED CATALOGUE.

Along with the reaching out for trade beyond the limits of the home city came first the increasing size and prominence of the catalogue, and soon after a more attractive method of advertising. Seed catalogues were offered at least as early as 1805, but these were mere lists and were not intended for general distribution. For forty years most of them remained essentially price lists, and were offered only as an afterthought in an advertisement.

View entire catalog

 Grant Thorburn's catalogue is, so far as the writer knows, the only one issued in pamphlet form as early as 1823.  

In 1825 his little book of about 4 by 7 inches in size contained 87 pages. Besides the usual retail price list, there was a wholesale list, and catalogues of bulbs, of flowering plants, and of tools. Brief directions for planting were given, and there were some longer articles on the culture of special grasses.

Shortly before the civil war the catalogue became more prominent. It was increased in size and issued in pamphlet form. The varieties offered were more or less carefully described, cultural directions were given, and an almanac and calendar of gardening operations was a frequent and prominent feature.
A few illustrations appeared before 1867, but after that date their number steadily increased, and before 1870 colored plates were introduced.

There have been changes in the advertisements in some respects similar to, and in others quite different from, those which have taken place in the catalogue.  



The old advertisements contained long lists of varieties, with prices, and differed little in type and style from the body of the paper, though sometimes more striking headlines were used. Gradually the advertisement was decreased in size, but was made more striking to the eye, and the announcement of the new catalogue occupied a prominent place.

1863 - old style 

1871 - "new" style

About 1870 the advertisements began to be more fully illustrated with cuts of those vegetables and flowers to which special attention was called. From this time on the style of advertising changed rapidly, always tending toward larger headlines, more illustrations, and such devices of the printer's art as would most surely catch and hold the reader's attention.
The early garden calendars were designed largely for distribution by the country dealers, who bought the seeds at wholesale. There was as yet but little direct contact with the distant consumer, as the mail trade was in its infancy. But with the increase of the postal facilities dealers began to depend more upon their catalogues.     The offer to send catalogues free became a prominent part of a seed advertisement, and every effort was made to render the catalogue attractive. Year by year the illustrations increased in number and quality, and pages of useful information gave it some title to rank as a garden guide.

1890s ad from Success with Flowers, a Floral Magazine

Novelties were not so numerous twenty years ago, and they did not receive the prominence the modern catalogue accords them. Before 1880 a special place in the seed catalogue was not generally given to novelties. 

Some firms gave prominence to new varieties, but many of the leading houses either ignored them or simply added to their regular list such as they found worthy. To-day, however, there is not an important catalogue but gives more or less space to novelties, and the descriptions of these are frequently printed on tinted paper or made attractive by devices of the printer's art. 

Some varieties remain in the novelty pages of one catalogue or another for years, and not infrequently a novelty will reach the age of two or three years in the catalogue of the same firm.  Seedsmen are on the alert for novelties; they are the money makers, and, besides, every really good introduction extends the reputation of the introducers. 

Many of the new varieties drop out after a year or two, being found wanting in some important particular and unable to make head against the old favorites; but others have intrinsic merit, and it is by the addition of these that our horticulture is enriched. The success of a novelty may be said to depend largely upon the introducers, since reputable firms endeavor to place only approved sorts in their novelty list; and, although even they are sometimes mistaken, the varieties thus introduced are more likely to possess merit than those heralded as possessing all sorts of impossible qualities and overburdened with a profusion of adjectives.

The modern catalogue is the seedsman's agent. It tells the prospective customer of the business it represents, setting forth in an attractive manner the superior merits of the seeds it offers. It must not only attract the eye, but must appeal to the judgment and to the imagination of the buyer.

 But the catalogue is more than the seedsman's agent—it is a text-book of horticulture. Millions of these illustrated catalogues find their way every year into rural homes. They are studied and compared, and much of the amateur gardener's knowledge of varieties is obtained from the seed catalogues. It is highly important, therefore, that the catalogue should be honest; it is perhaps too much to ask that it be conservative. 

The pictures should be as honest as the text, since the good effects of an accurate description may be ruined by an exaggerated illustration. Nor would honesty in text and figure exclude the proper praise of meritorious varieties; on the contrary, figures that are clearly not overdrawn and descriptions at once terse and complete will do more than the extravagant use of adjectives to inspire confidence, both in the qualities of the variety and in the seedsman's knowledge of them. Fortunately, most of our large houses do not seriously transgress in this matter; but there are some that do, and many irresponsible firms seem to think that they can make up in printer's ink what they lack in experience and reliability.

It would doubtless be difficult to say how many well-edited catalogues are published in the United States. Seedsmen would naturally differ in their judgment. In good catalogues two things are accomplished—the varieties are carefully described and so arranged that the purchaser can readily find what he wants. These catalogues describe in a few words the essential characteristics of the varieties, and in many cases these are grouped, as with cabbages, into first or early, second or summer, and late or autumn sorts; or with lettuce, as heading or not heading, and Cos varieties, for forcing or outdoor culture, and spring and summer varieties. This grouping is of great assistance to purchasers unfamiliar with the varieties described, helping them to select the sorts best suited to their location and needs.


Naturally, many more varieties are offered than are desirable in one garden. Some of these would be better left out, but they are popular in certain places and must be offered to hold that trade. Others, again, do better in one section of the country than in another, while a third class are merely synonyms of other varieties also catalogued. It is the aim of every careful seedsman to weed the synonyms out of his catalogue as much as may be; but with the present total lack of system in horticultural nomenclature it is difficult to arrive at perfection in this matter. 


So long as anyone can change a name and thus make new varieties from old ones, or can add his name to that of an established variety, a large number of synonyms must be expected, nor can the student of horticulture ever be sure that varieties of the same name are alike. It is also true that seedsmen often feel compelled to list names they know to be synonyms because the variety is known and called for under that name. It would be better, however, to list the variety under its proper name and add the synonym if necessary. 

A tendency in modern catalogue making that promises well for the future is the increase in the use of half-tone illustrations. Many of the leading catalogues are adopting this method of illustrating, and in some it has become a feature. 

ALERT:  My comments below :-)

Half-tone illustrations may be accurately depicting the plant's shape and size,
but YUCK!! they are awful!!  Compare this to the ones below.

The engraving has the most "life" to it! You had to trust the seedsman, then it seems the better illustration.  If people didn't know about your business's reliability, I guess photos were reassuring.

OK - back to the article below...

The older woodcuts, as well as many of the exaggerated illustrations of to-day, have lost their power to charm and to deceive. The public wishes to know as nearly as possible what the seed will produce under favorable conditions; it is the real, not the ideal, that is wanted. The seedsman may strive for the latter in breeding up his variety, but while this ideal is still unrealized he should hold his imagination in check when deciding on the illustrations for his catalogue. 

Summing up catalogue making, a writer a few years ago said: 

"The work of compilation on the modern catalogue is thorough and exhaustive, calling for vast knowledge of every branch of trade and an intimate acquaintance with a fluctuating market. The arrangement for a thorough supply of the stock to be advertised, the ability called into play to gauge what all his rivals are going to push and the prices they will charge, marshaling order out of chaos, writing and telegraphing to every corner of the globe, watching the work on the illustrations, and scores of minor matters to be regulated, call into play faculties of superior order, and make many a man old before his time from the tension on the system in the getting out of the great annual catalogue."

A Clever Person Shares on Their Blog

You might like this blog if you are interested in seed catalogs!  

Go to Wings of Whimsey for seed catalog borders for your own photos.

Seed Selling History - Part 1, The First Sellers to 1850

I welcomed this article from 1900 as an organizer of my blog's topics.  Just the mention of how the Civil War effected seed trade (not much) knocked some perspective and time awareness into me that was refreshing.  It also contained some anecdotes about individuals that make the times come alive.  All in all, it is well worth reading and sharing as an overview.

Appearing in the Yearbook of Agriculture, 1900, this history of the seed business is divided into major topics.  I am presenting them here by these parts rather than the whole thing at one go - it is much too long, (and it makes me feel better to get something done and posted)!

I have also reformatted the article  to be easier on the eye for online reading, reformatting into paragraphs, adding illustrations, adding links, and bulleting lists for easier comparison. My comments within the articles are in red usually.

To start off, here is a seed ad that predates what is mentioned in the article, but is from one of the Boston newspapers mentioned.  My hat is off to the writer of 1900 tracking down what old documents are quoted...research without the internet!!

Part 1

SEED SELLING:

DEALERS PREVIOUS TO THE COMMENCEMENT 

OF THE PRESENT CENTURY.

The first record of seeds for sale that the writer has been able to find is in the Newport, R. I., Mercury of 1763, where Nathaniel Bird, a book dealer, advertised garden seeds just arrived from London. Connecticut-grown onion seeds early acquired more than a local reputation. In 1764 Gideon Welles, ‘‘on the Point”, announced in the Newport Mercury that he had some choice Connecticut onion seed for sale.  Other advertisements ran through the following years, among them one by Charles Dunbar, gardener.

We get some idea of the prices of seeds from Dunbar's advertisement of 1767, where the following are given: 

• Peas and beans, 30 shillings per quart;
• Strasburgh onions and orange carrots, 25 shillings per ounce; 
• early cabbage, 40 shillings per ounce, and 
• “colliflower,” 6 pounds per ounce. 

 An N. B. informs us that “said Dunbar has to sell a great variety of flower seeds.”

(The value of the currency had fallen so low that in 1759 it required 2,300 pounds in currency to equal 100 pounds sterling; these conditions were only beginning to improve in 1767.)

Unfortunately, this document is not available online; this snippet from Google Books is all I found.

In New York City hemp and flax seeds were advertised for sale at least as early as 1765 and garden seeds in 1776. In that year Samuel Deall, a dealer in general merchandise on Broad street, opposite the end of Weaver street, kept “a general assortment of seeds,” many of which he names, including red clover, grass, and “Saintfoine” for improvement of land.
In the New Hampshire Gazette field seeds were advertised as early as 1766 and garden seeds in 1770.  

But Boston was the chief city for the sale of garden seeds, as it was the commercial center of the time. 

In the Boston Gazette of 1767 six out of twenty-six advertisers were dealers in seeds.  

(I couldn't find that issue; closest I came is one ad for 50 bushels of hemp seed. 
The ads appearing here are from the Mass Historical Society's collection.
 Boston Gazette, April 7, 1766.)  




Some of these did not advertise other goods, but it is doubtful whether they were seed dealers exclusively.

In the spring, when these advertisements appeared, the trade in seeds was probably more important than any other branch of their business. 

 Some of these dropped out and others appeared in later years, but several advertised regularly each year until 1773. 

 William Davidson, the gardener in Seven Star Lane, offered in 1768 seeds of 56 varieties of vegetables and herbs, and of one flower, the carnation. Some of his prices were as follows: 

• Lettuce, 3 to 4 pence per ounce; 
• cabbage, 9 pence to a shilling per ounce; 
• cauliflower, 3 shillings per ounce; 
• carnation, 4 shillings per ounce. 
• Most of the other vegetable and herb seeds ranged from 2 pence to a shilling per ounce; peas, Early Golden Hotspur and Early Charlton, were worth 24 shillings the bushel or 10 pence per quart. 

Davidson dealt in seeds wholesale and retail for cash. 

The war of independence, interrupting as it did the regular channels of trade, interfered with the importation of seeds, and the few garden seeds offered during this time were either imported from Holland or were taken from prize ships. 

Immediately after the war there was a revival of the trade in seeds, and in 1784 John Adams, Susanna Renkin, and Susanna Martin all advertised seeds just imported from London.  

These advertisements, however, soon after ceased, and in 1790 John Adams advertised for the last time in the Boston Gazette. It is not to be supposed that the absence of advertisements indicates the total cessation of the trade in seeds. 

This either slowed in other channels or the traders lost enterprise. But with the advertising habit well formed as it was prior to 1770, the total absence of advertisements of seeds for sale certainly indicates an unhealthy condition of the trade. 

In Philadelphia and New York seeds were but little advertised, whatever the trade may have been. In Philadelphia in 1772 Peteliah Webster sold clover and duck grass seed, and in 1775 James Longhead made known to the public that he kept “a quantity of the largest kind of colly-flower seed, found on trial to be extraordinary good.”   In 1775 David Reid, who styled himself “Gardener and seedsman,” advertised seeds for sale at his stall at the courthouse, and in 1781 purchasers were advised that flower seeds and seeds for the kitchen garden, “imported from Holland, can be procured next door to General Philip de Haas, in Third street, near Race street.” 

During the remaining years of the eighteenth century the papers contained few advertisements of seeds, and we can trace no connection between dealers of pre-Revolutionary times and those of the opening years of the nineteenth century. It is not probable, however, that there was a time when seeds could not be bought in any of the large towns.  The people were fond of gardening, the population was rapidly increasing, and there is no reason to suppose that the demand for garden seeds was less than before the war. 

This demand was doubtless partly supplied by the market gardeners, one of whom, David Landreth, established himself in Philadelphia in 1784, and engaged in the market gardening, nursery, and seed-growing business. The last was at first of small importance, and for many years the nursery occupied most of his attention. Seeds were almost entirely imported, and American gardeners had yet to learn that seeds could be as well grown here as in England. 

In spite of this, however, the seed business seems to have increased in importance until, in 1848, David Landreth, Jr., sold the nursery and became exclusively a seed grower and merchant.

Source

THE TRADE DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE CENTURY.

One of the first seedsmen of the present century was Bernard M’Mahon, gardener, seedsman, and author, who in 1800 opened a seed store in Philadelphia. 
Fortunately, we have a description of his store, which throws light on the condition of the trade at that time: 

"His store was in Second street, below Market, on the east side. Many must still be alive who recollect its bulk window, ornamented with tulip-glasses, a large pumpkin, and a basket or two of bulbous roots. Behind the counter officiated Mrs. M'Mahon, with some considerable Irish accent, but a most amiable and excellent disposition, and withal an able saleswoman. Mr. M'Mahon was also much in the store, putting up seeds for transmission to all parts of this country and Europe, writing his book, or attending to his correspondence, and in one corner was a shelf containing a few botanical or gardening books, for which there was then a very small demand; another contained a few garden implements, such as knives and trimming scissors, a barrel of pease, and a bag of seedling potatoes, an onion receptacle, and a few chairs, and the room partly lined with drawers containing seeds, constituted the apparent stock in trade of what was one of the greatest seed stores then known in the Union, and where was transacted a considerable business for that day."  (Wonder where this great description came from!!)

In the fall of 1805, Grant Thorburn began to sell seeds in New York, and subsequently built up a substantial business.  During the next quarter century seed stores were opened in Baltimore, Boston, and Charleston, S. C., as well as in Philadelphia and New York, and there was a considerable trade in Shakers' seeds. These Shakers’ seeds were popular as early as 1818. They were sold by regular dealers, and were peddled about the country in the Shakers' wagons. 

Source

The population of the United States had increased from a little more than three millions of whites in 1790 to ten and a half millions in 1830. In 1790 this population was practically confined to a narrow strip along the Atlantic seaboard. Forty years later it had overflowed into the rich valleys beyond the mountains. To meet the growing demand for vegetables and flowers, these ten and a half millions required more than three and a half times as many seeds as were used in 1790. Dealers established themselves in the principal cities and crossed the Alleghenies in the rear of the wave of settlement that swept into the Ohio Valley. The large cities became centers of distribution for the surrounding country, but the trade remained essentially local, though the larger houses did a wholesale business and supplied country dealers with their stocks, put up in packets for the retail trade. 

But transportation was slow and expensive, and the modern development of the postal service was as yet undreamed of. The amount of seed sold in Ohio at this time was insignificant. Mr. Parsons Gorham, a grocer and seed dealer in Cincinnati between 1827 and 1831, seldom carried a stock of more than 50 bushels of grass seed; and when, in 1831, S. C. Parkhurst opened a seed store, he sold in one year not more than 600 bushels of timothy and clover seed, while before the end of ten years his trade had increased to 6,000 bushels. 

Seed houses were opened in Mobile and New Orleans, and in 1844 William W. Plant began the sale of farm tools and seeds in St. Louis. While most of the trade between 1820 and 1850 was local or wholesale to country dealers, a change took place with the advent of the locomotive. The larger houses reached out for wider fields, made accessible by the railways, and new firms sprang up in every city of considerable size. Locomotives were unknown in the United States before 1829 and were scarcely used before 1832. At the end of 1835 there were 1,098 miles of railway in the United States; in 1850 the total mileage was 9,021, and in 1860 it was 30,635. 

This rapid increase in the railways not only opened up a vast and flourishing country, but facilitated transportation in the East and made possible the immense development of the mail trade. The mails brought the seedsman to every door; a letter brought a catalogue, and a few cents paid the postage on an order of seeds. The changes in the rates of postage and the regulations of the post office have at times helped or embarrassed the trade; but, though cheap postage has stimulated, higher rates have never checked the growth of the business.

Detail from a Cincinnati print.  Trains came to the city in 1836.

Want to read the original?   https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/IND43620780/PDF

March, 1990 - New Yorker Cover

I knew I would forget to post this on time!!  

1888 - William Wilcox Barnard -Tested Seeds

William Wilcox Barnard appears to have a business minded man who found his way into the seed business through his office skills,  rather than his experience with plants or seeds.  He did like his cannas as an older man, so maybe he grew into the business.

 I like him for his choice in the catalog cover art for his 1892 catalog!  I wonder if he picked the style.  They never had another interesting cover as far as I am concerned.  He had boring ads, too.  Then again, I can't find much about him, so I may be wrong.

The first catalog I found online (the 1892) is very whimsical.  The rest from the prime period of lithographed covers are colorful and unexciting, the minimum of what I expect from an acceptable seed catalog cover. 

 

At the age of 18 he got a job as clerk for the D. S. Heffron Seed Company, on Clark Street, under  D. S. Heffron.  He later became bookkeeper and cashier for Hiram Sibley and Company, who were pioneer seedsmen and owners of a warehouse.  In 1888, under the firm name of W. W. Barnard & Company, he purchased the garden seed department of that business after Sibley died.   (Sibley was a very interesting guy!)

"In 1905, this business was consolidated with Goodwin, Harris and Company as The W. W. Barnard Company, dealers in seeds and stock food.  Mr. Barnard was made president and treasurer and continued as such until his death, March 10, 1921.  His connection with the seed business in Illinois covers about fifty years."

1892

"The year Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-One has marked the passing of many people who have been Chicogoans since the period preceding the Chicago Fire.  In thinking of them, and of the past years, we are reminded that Chicago has not long been at its present point of development.    The growth thus far attained has come, quite largely, through the combined efforts of the people who have lived here for the last fifty or more years.  Among those men recently deceased, whose names are especially worthy of mention in a record covering a long period of Chicago's industrial progress is the late William Wilcox Barnard.

William Wilcox Barnard was born on a farm in Chicago, very near the present site of his late home in Beverly Hills, on July 4, 1856.  His parents were William and Miranda (Wilcox) Barnard.  They are numbered among the earliest residents of that section of the city for the mother came here in 1844, and the father in 1846.  In more recent years their hoestead farm and is now subdivided and now forms a portion of Beverly Hills.  William W. Barnard, as a boy, attended the Englewood High School and Bryant and Stratton's Business College."

Excerpts from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, with commemorative biographies, Vol 2, 1926

Here is another obituary.  The company got slammed in 921 as the vice-president died a month before Barnard!

1899 - Unleash the Butterflies; W. W. Barnard & Co. Tested Seeds

This lithographed cover from W. W. Barnard & Co. caught my eye once before.  This time I want to share close-ups of the lithographic dots.  I love them! 

  

I'll post about the man and the company later.  Today is just eye bonbons.  

100 Years Ago - Planting the Seeds of Victory

World War I (The War to End All Wars) had stretched food supplies, especially in Europe.  By planting home gardens women were doing their part to help.  I can't believe it never occurred to me to ask my grandmother about that time as she would have been about 30.  

 

Source: Library of Congress

Source: LOC