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Seed Company Advertising
by Pat Laffin
 What
better way to spend a sunny spring afternoon at the turn of the
century, when all the morning chores had been completed, than to
sit on the veranda and leaf through a multitude of seed catalogues?
It was not uncommon to find four- or five-color plates of some species
of flowering plant in each publication. Some of the most colorful
and profusely illustrated lithographs appear in the catalogues such
as John Lewis Childs of Floral Park, New York and Wm. Henry Maule
of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Most of the larger seed companies
did their own printing, while smaller companies employed others
to do this work.
All seed companies did not sell seed packets, which were introduced
by the Shakers. Many companies  shipped
seed in bulk or only sold plants and bulbs. For collectors, there
are some companies that have beautiful 150-page catalogues, yet
have no seed packets; while others have scores of packets, yet the
catalogues (if any) are lacking in illustration and information.
Jerome B. Rice, having a variety of beautiful packets, did not publish
catalogues; while John Lewis Childs, with his catalogues containing
numerous chromolithographed plates, did not print a large amount
of packets. What few Childs’ packets remain, tend to be plain,
with no illustrations. The same is true for Wm. Henry Maule’s
company.
Aside from catalogues and packets, collectors can find an array
of other advertising items, including yet not limited to posters,
broadsides, displays, tradecards, postcards, blotters, billheads,
advertising envelopes and booklets, and of course, the boxes with
those fabulous interior labels that were designed to be given away
after the packets were sold. Many schools gave these boxes to children
for fund raising, to sell the packets, and keep thereafter. Others
were used for counter-top sales in general stores.
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