To Customers and Friends 



We send you most cordial greeting and will be pleased to receive your uV.viil orders 

 for plants, etc. We feel sure you will be pleased with our new plants and seeds. We 

 have enjoyed their daily companionship long enough to know their merits. 



When ordering please observe carefully directions for ordering seeds and plants. 

 Always send a second choice list, as we may be short of some varieties. Ask questions 

 on a separate sheet of paper leaving space for answers. Enclose stamps when 

 wishing a reply to letters. 



Many of the plants offered in our catalogue are grown only in conservatories or 

 the house in climates where winter prevails; but in Southern California, especially on 

 the coast and a few miles back, most of the plants, bulbs and seeds we offer, can be 

 grown in the open ground all the year. Many plants that attain great proportions in 

 Southern California, never grow more than the height of a few feet in the east. 

 We would suggest to our Eastern customers that they give tender plants, especially 

 begonias, the benefit of open ground culture, partial shade in summer, and before frost 

 to cut them back a little and remove them into pots, thus insuring stronger growth for 

 winter. Much can be learned by experimenting. When we first began to grow tender 

 plants in California we were told they would not grow outside, but we experimented, 

 sometimes losing them, but trying again, till we learned their requirements in this 

 climate. 



Our increasing business and the many complimentary letters received encourage 

 us in the belief that flower lovers appreciate our efforts to send out first class stock. One 

 of the lecturers of the Southern Pacific Demonstration train stated that owing to the 

 rigid inspection plants grown in California are less liable to pests and diseases than 

 those from any other state. He urged that prospective purchasers give the preference 

 to California grown plants. 



Our cuttings are taken from plants grown in the open the year round and therefore 

 our plants are more vigorous than green house grown plants. 



We will make special prices on large collections of begonias, cactus, etc. We are 

 prepared to furnish fine specimen begonias of various sizes. Prices on application. We 

 make a specialty of hanging baskets. 



If you cannot make use of this catalogue, kindly hand it to some other flower lover. 



Theodosia B. Shepherd Co, 



How Ventura is Situated 



Ventura is the county seat of Ventura county with a population of 3500 inhabit- 

 ants. It lies in a semicircle at the base of the foothills with the ocean directly in front. 

 East of town, it widens into a broad fertile valley. Its proximity to the ocean and 

 the protection of the hills north and west, give it a warm sheltered situation, that pro- 

 tects it from frosts or heavy winds, and make it the most favorable place on the coast 

 for tender plants. 



It is on the main line of the coast road, between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, 

 the former seventy miles south, the latter, thirty miles north. Visitors at either place 

 can visit our gardens and return the same day. Intending purchasers will be greatly 

 assisted in making selections of plants by a visit to the gardens, where many fine speci- 

 mens and varieties of all classes of plants are to be seen growing in the open air. 



