Pennsylvania,
was established as an experimental farm to test and
evaluate new varieties of vegetables and flowers, and to
produce seeds. Before World War I, Atlee spent many
summers traveling through Europe and the United States,
visiting farms and searching for the best flowers and
vegetables. Atlee shipped many of the vegetables and
flowers he found to Fordhook Farms for testing.
Those plants that survived were bred with healthier types
to produce hybrids better suited to the United States.
Fordhook Farms was the first laboratory to research and
test seeds in this way. Fordhook Farms specialized
in testing onions, beets, carrots, peas and cabbage.
In 1909, Burpee established Floradale Farms in Lompoc,
California, to test sweet peas, and Sunnybrook Farms near
Swedesboro, New Jersey tested tomatoes, eggplants, peppers
and squashes. In his travels, Atlee met Asa Palmer,
a Pennsylvania farmer who raised beans, and who thought he
had one plant that was resistant to cutworms. Burpee
turned this bean plant into what is now known as the
Fordhook lima bean, one of the company’s most famous
items. Another successful plant was the Golden
Bantam sweet corn that the farmer William Chambers of
Greenfield, Massachusetts had grown before his death.
A friend of Chambers found some of the sweet corn seeds
and sold Burpee seeds of the corn, and in 1902, Golden
Bantam was featured in a Burpee catalog. Before 1900
most people thought that yellow corn was fit only for
animals, so in order to change their customers minds, many
farmers slipped Golden Bantam corn in with the white corn
they were selling. Within a few years, people in the
United States were converted to yellow corn. Iceberg
lettuce was introduced in 1894 and named for its
crispness. A key in Burpee’s business was the 1863
free delivery system, that required post offices to
deliver mail to residents’ homes, and in 1896, free
delivery was extended to rural areas. This allowed
his catalogs to be delivered directly to people’s homes.
Thousands of letters were received annually from
Burpee’s customers thanking him for his seeds.
Burpee knew that the key to his business was advertising
and the catalog was his advertising medium. In his
first year of business, his catalog was 48 pages, but by
1915 his catalogs were 200 pages and he distributed a
million catalogs. Burpee personally wrote most of the copy
of his catalogs. Burpee set up an advertising
department and offered cash prizes for the best
advertisements. This competition is what originated
the slogan “Burpee Seeds Grow” in 1890. The 1891
catalog was the first to feature engravings made from
photographs, and by 1901 this process was done by
machines. Burpee’s move to photography changed the
whole industry and the hand-drawn illustration in catalogs
disappeared. In another break with tradition, Burpee
eliminated cultural information and put in testimonial
letters and plant descriptions. At Atlee’s
death in 1915, the company had 300 employees, and it was
the largest seed company in the world. At that time
the Burpee company distributed over 1 million catalogs a
year and received 10,000 orders a day.
Sources: MHS;
Art
Gar; GG;
Tucker;
Kraft;
Hort;
H&G;
SW2;
Beans;
Lowe;
NCAB;
Nguyen;
http://www.burpee.com/fordhook
Sources: Kraft; ANBv22; NCAB; Reilly; Raver; Waldron; DVA; Rockwell; Beans; Lowe; http://www.burpee.com/fordhook