With springtime still several months away - at least, according to the calendar - it's time for seed catalogs to begin their annual arrival to mailboxes around the country. Aside from the fact that most annuals are planted when the danger of frost has passed, I think the publishers of said periodicals mail them during the winter months to add a punch of color to the dreary, gray days of the new year.
Anyone else want to order one of everything? Just me, then?
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The first commercial seed company was founded in 1784 by David Landreth, an immigrant from England who set down roots (pun totally intended) in Philadelphia. Along with his brother, Cuthbert, he built his
seed company into an empire that's still in operation today. Along with printing one of the first seed catalogs in the country, the seeds that Landreth sold also traveled south to George Washington’s Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and west in covered wagons across the rivers and prairies to untamed lands.
Over the next few years, other mail-order seed companies began sprouting up.
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| Public domain |
Milo T. Gardner, Dexter M. Ferry, and Eber F. Church started M.T. Gardner & Company (later known as
Ferry-Morse) in 1856.
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| Public domain |
In 1868, a fifteen-year-old boy by the name of George W. Park, wanting a little pocket money, took out an advertisement for $3.50 in
The Rural American, an investment that returned $6.50 in orders. Thus began
Park Seed, a company that's still in business today.
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| Public domain |
In 1876, a name most home gardeners are familiar with, W. Atlee Burpee, started his own mail-order business selling fancy poultry after borrowing $1000 from his mother. But as more and more requests flooded in from farmers wanting seeds to plant in their gardens, Burpee recognized the opportunity and expanded his catalog's offerings, and by the 1880s, his was the fastest growing mail-order seed company in the world.
To this day,
Burpee's colorful catalogs grace the tops of kitchen tables and nightstands everywhere.
Even places like
Seed Savers Exchange, founded in 1975 by Diane Ott Whealy and Kent Whealy, got its start thanks to earlier generations. The company launched with two varieties of seeds handed down by Diane's grandfather, whose parents brought them from Bavaria in 1870 when they immigrated to America.
With careful cultivation and mindfulness, the rich legacy of our ancestors can live forever.
