Monday, February 15, 2016

1896 - Seedsman F.B. Mills: Bird's Eye View Mills' Rose Hill

Before you read a glowing biography of Mr. Mills and his business acumen below,  have a look at these samples of his 1896 and 1901 catalogs.  

 I am a sucker for any bird's eye view and this one is a lot of fun.  



"His is strictly a mail-order business, and its requirements were such that the government, on November 5, 1895, established Rose Hill post-office with F. B. Mills as postmaster. "



The illustrations of all the departments of his business is fascinating to look at as well.  They are relatively inexpensive catalogs, in that there is no color in 1896 and only the cover in 1901.






The 1901 catalog:





Of added interest to me is the engraver and possibly artist of some of these engravings.  Albert Blanc of Philadelphia is an artist I really admire for his horticultural engravings.  Check out his signature...it is a sort of "Where's Waldo?" hunt on many engravings when you are looking for a signature, but Blanc is usually easy to spot.





FRANK B. MILLS
FRANK B. MILLS, was born in the town of Marcellus, Onondaga county, August 3, 1866, and is a son of George C. and Eliza Mills, who reside on a fine farm at Rose Hill, in the southern part of the town. His early life was passed on the homestead, where he developed a decided inclination for producing and classifying the seeds of various plants and vegetables, at which he became an expert while yet a mere lad. 
His spare time from work and school was spent in the garden, where be thoroughly familiarized himself with every plant that chanced to meet his notice. By the time he had finished his education he had acquired a wide and practical knowledge of almost every seed grown, not only in this country, but in the world, and he at once determined to apply that knowledge to production and distribution. This proved to be the beginning of a business scarcely equaled elsewhere in the State, a business, in fact, that ranks high among the largest concerns of the kind in the country. 
He had become the possessor of a small hand printing press capable of printing an ordinary page at each impression, and with this, at the age of less than twenty-one, he began, in 1887, to print his first catalogue. He did all the work alone, from setting the type to mailing the modest book, of which about 8,000 copies were issued and sent out. During that year be secured 118 customers. From this small commencement the business has steadily and rapidly increased in volume and extent until it now forms one of the largest and most complete establishments of its character in the United States. He has now over 400,000 customers, whose orders come from every habitable part of the globe—from Canada, South America, and Europe, from Asia, Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, -—requiring about half a million catalogues annually for distribution. 
Mr. Mills has a number of large and convenient buildings and several greenhouses devoted exclusively to the business, and all have been erected within the last four or five years. To these and especially to the greenhouses he is constantly adding; each year is increasing the extent and magnitude of an already mammoth concern. He has a large seed farm, of which several acres are devoted entirely to testing every variety of seed he sells, and nothing is shipped away until it is thoroughly tried and fully equals every requirement. In this way Mr. Mills has established a name and business which ranks him among the few great seedsmen of the United States.
 It is doubtful if a concern of equal magnitude has ever sprung into existence in the short time in which his has been prosecuted, and all this is due to the indomitable energy, the systematic methods, and the close personal supervision of the proprietor. He is the founder of a business of which not only Onondaga county but the State of New York may be well proud. 
As an auxiliary to his adopted calling, and as a means of disseminating valuable and practical knowledge among the thousands of gardeners and horticulturists throughout the country, Mr. Mills established in December, 1894, an illustrated monthly entitled “Success with the Garden," which has begun what promises to be an auspicious career. 
His is strictly a mail-order business, and its requirements were such that the government, on November 5, 1895, established Rose Hill post-office with F. B. Mills as postmaster. He resigned this position in 1897, and was succeeded by his brother William E. Mills. 
His residence, the finest in the town and one of the handsomest in the county, was completed in 1893, and with all his other buildings is pleasantly located on Fairview Farm at Rose Hill in the south part of Marcellus. 
Mr. Mills was married, June 16, 1892, to Miss Grace Ackles, daughter of Samuel Ackies, 0f Spafford.

Onondaga's CentennialGleanings of a Century, Volume 2, 1896


Sunday, January 31, 2016

1893 - Livingston and the Tomato, by Livingston!


How I didn't find this book last year when I had tomato fever I cannot imagine!!   It is wonderful.   Alexander Livingston was a smart man to get his story down the way he wanted to be remembered. For more posts on Alexander Livingston check my seedsman index.

 You can download the book from several sources, in most all formats, in case you want to have it on your reading device.


I'll just pop a brief snippet in here as the reading quality is wonderful when you go to the full size option of the scanned book.  What a joy to find a high quality book.

And to think the tomato was to be changed from a pretty but uneaten fruit into one of the most competitively bred food plants in history!

The First Tomato I Ever Saw. 
 Well do I remember the first tomato I ever saw. I was ten years old, and was running down one of those old-fashioned lanes, on either side of which was the high rail fence, then so familiar to all Ohio people. Its rosy cheeks lighted up one of these fence-corners, and arrested my youthful attention. I quickly gathered a few of them in my hands, and took them to my mother to ask, ''What they were?" 
As soon as she saw me with them, she cried out, " You must not eat them, my child. They must be poison, for even the hogs will not eat them." "But what are they, mother?" I asked. “Some call them 'Jerusalem Apples;' others say they are 'Love Apples;' but, now mind, you are not to eat them. You may go and put them on the mantel, they are only fit to be seen for their beauty."


Monday, January 25, 2016

1914 - In Praise of the Unknown Mother of Early Sweet Peas





I wonder what is fact and what is fiction.  Was there really a talented gardener who improved the sweet pea for her own pleasure whose work was used by the professional seedsman to launch a "new" variety?  

This dedication from Sweet Peas for Profit: Cultivation-- under Glass and Outdoors includes only two sentences! (This was written before E. B. White and Mr. Strunk took the world in hand.)


                                       DEDICATION 
TO AN UNKNOWN WOMAN 


To the persevering working woman who, by 25 years patient and persistent selection and loving regard, was the means of extracting for the use of succeeding florists, the early flowering and bright and beautiful sweet pea, known as Blanche Ferry. 

Her name is not known; whether she yet lives is unknown: but she was the instrument quite as truly as others who have followed her whose names are emblazoned on the horticultural scroll of fame have been instrumental in perfecting the present day race of early flowering or winter sweet peas by providing to the hands of the hybridizers of more recent years the great American variety already mentioned, and made it possible to express from it the wonderful flowers whose colors and fragrance and elegance delight us at Christmas and please us when the lakes are frozen and the snow lies deep.



More information from Sweet peas for Profit:
Some 55 years ago she procured seeds of a bright flowered plant of Painted Lady, and for many years thereafter she sowed and selected, and as her garden overlay limestone, and was of very shallow soil, averaging not more than foot in depth, her strain of plants gradually became more compact. At the end of 25 years the type she had been selecting was of bushy form and was grown without support. W. W. Tracy, Sr., of the firm of D. M. Ferry & Co., Detroit, who is now superintendent of the Testing Gardens of the United States Dept. of Agriculture at Washington, D. C, saw the plants, and being immediately impressed with their distinctiveness and merits, obtained small stock, only about 100 seeds. 
This was the famous Blanche Ferry, and was introduced in 1889 by the firm above mentioned. It was honored by having colored plate in the firm's catalog that year.  Six years later Messrs. Ferry introduced the Extra Early Blanche Ferry, and described it in these words: "The Extra Early Blanche Ferry is more dwarf, very much earlier, and fully equal in all other respects to Blanche Ferry. How much earlier we hardly dare say, but the most competent observer who compared it with upward of 50 varieties, declares it is two or three weeks earlier than any of them. Our careful observation convinces us that it is so early and dwarf that in these respects it outclasses all other Sweet Peas, and while these qualities make it incomparably the best Sweet Pea for forcing, its dwarf habit and persistent blooming make it equally desirable for outdoor culture." 
The House of Burpee distributed Earliest of All in 1898, when it was described in the catalog of the firm as "Not only the earliest to bloom in theopen ground, but also the most desirable for forcing under glass for Winter cut flowers. The dwarf habit of the plant (only 2 ft.) renders it much more easily grown upon benches, admits closer planting, and from seeds sown in the latter part of August blooms may be cut for the holidays, while with the taller varieties no blooms can be cut before February or March."
Sixteen years earlier Will Tracy wrote an article with some details about her...the same details that were repeated in Sweet Peas for Profit.  Where he got the information hasn't turned up yet.


Gardening, Volume 6 - 1898 excerpt:     It has been said that our American sorts are not the result of horticultural skill, but chance sports, the outcome of the large areas planted in this country and the consequent immense number of individual plants produced. But no one who has had an opportunity to know the careful study and earnest work of some of our American growers will deny that their work is well done and worthy of praise.  
While it perhaps does not illustrate this point, the history of two American sorts may be of interest.  Some forty years ago a woman in Northern New York noticed and saved the seed of a particularly bright flowered plant of the old Painted Lady. She planted them in her garden and each succeeding year saved and planted seed of what she thought were the best plants. She did not raise many, some years not more than a dozen plants, and never more than could be grown in three square yards. She was the wife of a quarryman, and her garden was always over limestone ledges, where the soil, though fertile was very thin, often not over a foot in depth, and gradually her plants became more compact and sturdy, until after some ten or twelve years she ceased to "bush" them, simply letting them support themselves. 
After she had raised them in this way for some twenty-five years a seedsman noticed their beauty, obtained about 100 seeds and from them has come the Blanche Ferry. This poor woman was not a scientist, her little garden and cottage were not at all an ideal trial ground and seed laboratory— but no scientist has suggested a better plan for the development and fixing of the qualities which make the Blanche Ferry the most practically useful variety we have than that which her love for the beautiful and her conditions of life lead to her carrying out so faithfully and patiently.  
The Extra Early Blanche Ferry was not the result of the selections of the earliest flowers, but it was developed on the theory that the time (from the sowing of the seed) of a plant coming into flower was quite as largely affected by conditions of growth as by constitutional tendency, but that the period in the development of the plant when it first showed bloom was more a matter of constitutional tendency than of growth conditions. Accordingly in breeding for early flowering, plants which produced flowers from the lowest nodes, rather than those which first showed flower, were selected, and the results show the correctness of the theory. It seems to me that what Americans have done in the development of this flower suggests possibilities with others, and that we ought to look forward to the production of our own flower seeds of all kinds.   
Will W. Tracy.




Sunday, January 24, 2016

1931 - Bean Portraits, How I Love Them!

I have always loved lovingly painted bean portraits.  I figured out how to do it may years ago with my watercolors.  It was fun.  But this job must have been quite the challenge since the people who were critiquing the work really knew their beans!!  I wonder if my practice beans are still in my old sketchbook...
I wish this was a better scan but many thanks to the Biodiversity Heritage Lab for having one as good as this.  Others I have found online are bigger but awful quality.

These color plates are from 1931 work, The Vegetables of New YorkFrom the preface: 'The Vegetables of New York is intended to be a more or less complete record of the vegetables grown in New York State."  

Don't overlook the names! There are some good stories in them.







Below is my old friend the Lazy Wife pole bean :-)





Thursday, January 21, 2016

1890 - The Enthusiastic, List Loving Mr. Burr

Charles L. Burr, Seedsman, Springfield, Ohio

I hadn't found a seedsman lately that caught my interest.  Then I bumped into this...

System,  Hard work, The best varieties, A loveof horticulture, The knowledge of requirements, Bring success with flowers or fruits. Map out next year's work now. Collect your lists of best varieties.  Start a horticultural society in your place. Buy the best of everything, if it costs more. Take all the horticultural papers you can afford, not omitting SUCCESS WITH FLOWERS.


Here is a respected seedsman who was addicted to a sort of shape poem while he dished out good advice and ads!  As the following magazine introduction says, his columns was "full of the right information at the right time".  

While the two pieces above were timeless, most of his work was addressed to concerns of that month in the garden. And every month Burr produced a column that was shaped like a cone.  I love it!
Here are some edited columns.  I pruned them when the column started to have straight sides. They got more into particular care of varieties and less universal in their advice when he used more words. 







 By the way, I added this background color...


This one is a delightful self promotion.



Most of the above pieces by Burr are from Success with Flowers, a Floral Magazine, Volumes 1-2 1890


The basics:
From A General History of the Burr Family, 1878
His father HARVEY BURR, of Champion, Jefferson County, NY m. Mar. 11, 1851, to Florilla Lane, b. June 20, 1832. Their children were Charles L., b. Aug. 22, 1853 ;  Anderson H.," b. July 19, 1856;  Clara E., b. Sept. 16, 1858; Clarence E., b. June 26, 1861 ;Ida May,"b. Dec. 11, 1862; Laura B., b. 1299 Dec. 31, 1868.
CHARLES L. BURR, of Springfield, Massachusetts married Frances E. Adams, of Mt. Hope, N. Y. Their children were Ida May, b. Jan. 26, 1881 ; Estella G., b. Jan. 10, 1883; Harrison H.,  b. Nov. 24, 1884; Charles L., Jr., b. May 26, 1887. Mr. Burr is a practical seedsman and florist, and has established a large and rapidly increasing business at Springfield.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

1897 - In Praise of Petunias as Winter Houseplants

When I read that petunias made delightful winter companions my eyebrows shot up!  It never occurred to me petunias could be a house plant all winter long. 


However, a lady from Fond du Lac, Michigan sings their praises in this letter from Vick's Monthly Magazine, October 1897.

I would say in return to all lovers of flowers, take up some late Petunias, cut them back pretty well and pot them for the house. I did so with some a few years ago. I had several beautiful varieties, and they commenced to bloom in February, and were almost covered with flowers until June. 
They were the most interesting plants I have ever had in winter, for we never knew what a morning would disclose; sometimes a blossom would be partly double, or two blossoms would have grown together, or one would be fringed on one side, or present a number of queer little points around the edge; and nature played various other freaks with her late-blooming beauties.
 I think any one who will pot a few Petunias for winter will be fully repaid for his trouble, and if you object to the oddly-fashioned blossoms, you can pinch them off, and yet leave your plants covered with blooms. The small, purplish-rose Petunia, with white throat, seems most liable to play all these queer tricks.
Mrs. C. E. F., Fond du Lac, Wis.



Another enthusiastic woman wrote in earlier...


The Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries reminds us in 1846 to start petunias for winter houseplants from cuttings in August.  If you forget they say October is the month to dig up any plant that looks promising to bring in for the winter.

While 

While Arthur's Home Magazine gives the following advice in 1856.
A little earth is thrown over one of the procumbent branches, which causes it, in a few  weeks, to develop roots in the soil.  The branch is then cut from the stem, and potted.   Those young plants which are obtained in this  manner are the most capable of being preserved  in the house during the winter. 

Here are varieties from 1895 - Vick's Catalog


Good advice from 1886 - As a window plant, many amateurs have said nothing but good words for the Petunia. It is a refreshing green, a robust grower, and a reasonably profuse bloomer, but it must not be allowed to become too dry, or red spider will make sad havoc with it. I have never used it for winter flowering, as I have not the window-room necessary, but I find no difficulty in wintering my double Petunias in a cool, frost proof, and dry cellar. The Petunia is well worthy a place in any garden, and will amply repay you for the little trouble necessary to grow it well.
More advice, 1889 - If you are fond of the pretty striped Petunias send for a packet of seeds of the Red Star variety. It is one of the best regularly striped Petunias in the market. Each flower has a white star in the centre. For ease of cultivation and profuse flowering the Petunia has no superior. It is an admirable flower for the Winter window garden. Sow some seeds in Midsummer and pot a few of the plants in the Fall if you want something very satisfactory for Winter blooming.  Success with Flowers, a Floral Magazine

_____________________________________

Here are plants from a winter when I remembered to  follow my own advice of cut them back in later summer to get bushy again before bringing them in.  They will get aphids usually, but the sticky petunias (not all are sticky) trap them pretty well!  Keep your eye out for aphids and wash them off or whatever you like to do.









1882 - Eureka Manure

I love early advertising!




This appeared in England in Gardening, IllustratedFor Town and Country. A Weekly Journal for Amateurs and Gardeners, Volume 3


early Daniel's Eureka Manure or Concentrated Essence of Plant Life