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1887 Seed Catalogue

· Seed Catalogue,1887,Gardening,Peter Henderson,Marketing

I like quirky things and when I saw this seed catalogue from 1887, I got pretty excited. This featured item has survived for over 130 years where the vast majority of such things don’t make it past a planting season.

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Peter Henderson & Co’s Everything for the Garden – 1887, 35 & 37 Cortland St., New York.

Here is a featured article from the New Jersey City University’s “Jersey City Past and Present" newsletter:

Peter Henderson & Company
Peter Henderson and James Henderson

Horticulturists

Market gardening was one of Jersey City's most unusual and colorful industries in the mid-nineteenth century. Carriages and later trucks, carting off shipments of fresh, locally grown produce and cut flowers to nearby markets, were once a commonplace sight on the streets of the city. Greenhouses and small gardens used undeveloped tracts of land across the otherwise industrial community. Enterprising horticulturists employed intensive cultivation techniques, producing varieties of flowers, ornamental plants, and vegetables. Easily forgotten, these gardening operations contributed to the unique mix of Jersey City's diverse economy though they left no landmark buildings or other physical traces of their activities.

Peter and James Henderson, brothers and immigrants from Scotland, founded two prosperous gardening businesses in Jersey City. Their companies flourished by specializing in different niches in the market gardening trade and by adopting cooperative business relationships with each other. James Henderson, the older of the two, established a separate vegetable truck farm in the Greenville section of Jersey City. James' potential was cut short by his early death, but his brother Peter became known to his peers as "the father of horticulture and ornamental gardening" in the United States.

A longtime Jersey City resident and an accomplished entrepreneur, Peter viewed himself as a
"seedsman," who gradually developed an interest in ornamental gardening. Henderson's gardening firm and catalog company based in Jersey City and New York lasted over a hundred years. His writings contributed to the community of gardeners worldwide and advanced the science of horticulture. The descendants of Peter and James Henderson continued their forefathers' floral and greenhouse businesses.

And their location in NYC was in the Financial District and is now the site of the new World Trade Centre. Osama bin Laden would not have attacked a garden center!

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The catalogue was 140 pages and covered everything under the sun related to plants and vegetables. You name it – they had it.

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The catalogue had two great colour pages (I should say color pages, since this is a USofA item).

What I found quite intriguing was how sophisticated Peter Henderson was at marketing, All through this catalogue it was the Peter Henderson this & that, the best there is. This man should be in the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. Here are photos of two inserts in the catalogue, one featuring a book called “Gardening for Profit” only $2. And the other was a folded pink order form that gave the buyer options to pay in cash, a draft, a Post Office Order or C.O.D.

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And lastly, this catalogue was also meant to appeal to those folks who had a seaside mansion, and presumably gardeners on the payroll who could keep their grass tennis court in good nic!

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