Sources: SW3; CHSJ-Oct. 1961; cat.-022551; Art Gar; AH; HG; Tice; CP; GT; VanRav
|
|
|
| Company Name: | D.M. FERRY & CO |
| Catalog Title: | Seed Annual 1908 |
| Publication Date: | 1908 |
| Ferry, Dexter Mason–(b. 1833)–Detroit,
Michigan–Ferry was born in Lowville, New York on August
8, 1833. In 1856 he founded the D. M. Ferry &
Co., Detroit, Michigan. The company merged with the
California based seed company, C. C. Morse Company in 1930
to become the Ferry-Morse Seed Company. The
Ferry-Morse Seed Company became part of France’s Groupe
Limagrain, considered in 1990 to be the third largest seed
company in the world. “Ladies should cultivate
flowers as an invigorating and inspiring out-door
occupation. Many are pining and dying from monotony
and depression, who might bury their cares by planting a
few seeds...” wrote D. M. Ferry in the 1876 Seed
Annual. The vegetable section began with a quote
from Plutarch advising exercise through gardening.
“Out-door work...must tend to develop that attachment of
the citizen to his home, which is one of the strongest
safeguard of society against lawlessness and
immorality.” Chromolithographs illustrated this
catalog as well, and lithographs of the seed farm show
different activities, hoeing, weeding cabbage, dinner, and
harvesting. The field workers are almost all women
with men supervising. Ferry invented the
“commission box,” a seed rack for retail display, and
was the first to have brightly colored seed packets. Sources: SW3; CHSJ-Oct. 1961; cat.-022551; Art Gar; AH; HG; Tice; CP; GT; VanRav
|
|