Historic Seed & Nursery Catalogs can be used to identify period- appropriate varieties of vegetables, fruit, flowers and landscape plants when interpreting historical sites. A digital collection of 31,000 catalogs is freely accessible in the Biodiversity Heritage Library's Seed & Nursery Catalog Collection. Plant Information Online can help determine if the variety is available.

1. Historic
Seed & Nursery Catalogs
to Document
Gardens and Orchards
Digital Seed & Nursery Catalog Collection in
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Marty Schlabach
Food & Agriculture Librarian, Retired
Mann Library, Cornell University
MLS5@cornell.edu
ALHFAM Conference June 2017

2. One of my first jobs for pay was
selling seeds door to door
• Don’t remember what seed company
• Earned a watch, a basketball, perhaps other things
• Not sure any cash was earned

3. • I spent 12 years as the Director of the Lee Library,
New York State Agricultural Experiment Station,
Geneva, NY.
• Unfortunately, I never met Bob Becker, long-time
member and contributor to ALHFAM on the topic
of the history of vegetable varieties and the seed
industry.

4. A seed or nursery catalog has “a limited
period of obvious utility and is then
discarded wholesale. … a great deal more
of everyday life, human interest, and social
history is contained in this great body of
ever-changing and continually destroyed
writings and printings than might at first
sight be supposed.”
John Harvey, Early Gardening Catalogues, 1972, p.ix

5. “Now we regret that no serious attempt was made early in
our horticultural history to keep continuous files of our seed
and nursery catalogues. No better year by year history of
our horticulture and the men who created it exists. The
brief personal notes in some of these catalogues are real
footnotes of history.” Elizabeth Woodburn, founder of Woodburn Books
“Horticulture in this country was developed and taught by
American nurserymen. They grew the plants. They issued
the catalogues. They wrote the books. They wrote all but a
few of the gardening books from the earliest through the
middle of the nineteenth century. It was simple cause and
effect. If they wanted to sell seeds and plants, they had to
tell people how to grow them.”
Elizabeth Woodburn, Horticultural Heritage: The Influence of U.S. Nurserymen. IN
Agricultural Literature: Proud Heritage-Future Promise, A Bicentennial Symposium,
September 24-26, 1975. p.111, 1977

8. H. G. Faust & Co, Philadelphia, PA, 1895
John A. Salzer Seed Co catalog, La Crosse, Wis., 1897

9. Listings of fruit and vegetables
with descriptions
Amateur's Fruit and Ornamental Trees, York, PA 1867

10. Historical or older seed and nursery
catalogs often hard to find
• Local and regional historical societies and libraries
sometimes have a selection
• Several very large seed and nursery catalog collections
can be found scattered around the country
• NY Botanical Garden
• Missouri Botanical Garden
• Andersen Horticultural Library, Univ of Minnesota
• Smithsonian
• National Agriculture Library
• Cornell University
• Large digital collection now online and free

11. Collaborative Digitization Effort
• New York Botanical Garden
• LuEsther T. Mertz Library
• 50,000+ catalogs
• Missouri Botanical Garden
• Peter H. Raven Library
• Thousands of catalogs & seed exchange lists
• National Agriculture Library, USDA
• Henry G. Gilbert Nursery & Seed Trade Catalog Collection
• 200,000+ catalogs
• Cornell University Library
• Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium (Plant Specimen Collection)
• Ethel Zoe Bailey Horticultural Catalog Collection
• 130,000+ catalogs

12. Seed & Nursery Catalog Collection
Online
• Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)
• http://biodiversitylibrary.org
• Collaboration among 20+ botanical & natural history libraries
• 203,141 volumes
• 52,075,469 pages
• Seed & Nursery Catalog Collection
• http://biodiversitylibrary.org/browse/collection/seedcatalogs
• http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/collection/seedcatalogs
• A subcollection in BHL
• 31,720 catalogs and growing (June 2017)
• 1,398,238 pages
• Combining NAL, NYBG, MBG and Cornell digitized catalogs
• Mostly U.S. and pre-1923

13. How can one use the online collection
of seed and nursery catalogs?
• Know of a nearby or regional seed or nursery
company?
• Search BHL’s Seed and Nursery Catalog sub-collection by the
firm name as author
• Have a place name?
• Search BHL by place name in the subject field
• Have a year in mind?
• Search BHL by year
• Browse the results online
• OR download results to a spreadsheet

14. http://biodiversitylibrary.org

21. Catalogue of greenhouse plants, hardy trees, evergreen shrubs,
flowering shrubs, bulbous rooted, and herbaceous plants,
arranged by their botanic and English names, to which is
attached the place of their nativity with a collection of the most
esteemed varieties of fruit trees, and a catalogue of garden
seeds, David and Cuthbert Landreth :1826
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/80120#/summary

30. Sourcing seeds and plants
• Forthcoming books from Seed Savers Exchange
• Directory of Non-Hybrid Vegetable Seeds in the United States
• Directory of Non-Hybrid Fruit, Berry, and Nut Varieties in the
United States
• http://www.seedsavers.org/category/books/department/gift-shop
• (Available mid-summer 2017)
• Plant Information Online
• https://plantinfo.umn.edu/

35. Other uses of Historic
Seed & Nursery Catalogs
• Beautiful illustrations
• Represent the history of printing & illustration
• Biographical Information on proprietors
• Dates of new species and cultivar introductions
• Farm implements
• http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/81197#/summary
• Beekeeping supplies
• http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/133220#page/67/mode/1up
• Dairy Supplies
• http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/133220#page/66/mode/1up
• Poultry supplies
• http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/133220#page/59/mode/1up

36. Joseph Breck & Co, 1840,
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/78953#/summary
Garden & Farm Tools & Equipment

37. Garden & Farm
Tools & Equipment
(Mann’s Superior Seeds, 1934)

38. Beekeeping and Dairy Supplies (Manns’ Superior Seeds, 1934)

39. Poultry,
Supplies and Equipment
(Manns Superior Seeds, 1934)

40. https://lattaroxfarm.com/chicken-waterers

41. Thank You!
Marty Schlabach
MLS5@cornell.edu