jSEEOS' _ 

 213 IMPLEMENTS. ^iF^ 



"Prove all things, hold fast to that 

 Vhich is good" 



j^jN th.e purchase of no other merchaoidise is 

 this proverb more important than in seeds. 

 The -wise gardener and planter has the 

 harvest in vie^w -when he selects his seeds- 

 men. His seeds are his foundation. He not 

 only wants the BEST SEEDS THAT GROW, 

 but an assortment of VARIETIES IT PAYS 

 TO GROW. 

 That our earnest efforts to furnish such for ni^h 

 on to a score of years have been appreciated, is evidenced 

 by the record of a business •which may be -written in 

 the word " SUCCESS," especially w^hen it be the record 

 of such years as the two just past. 



Our old customers are those w^ho know us best, and 

 from others we only ask the courtesy of a trial order. 



J OHNSOy k STOKES 



SEED WAREHOUSES: 

 217 and 319 Market St. .-. 206 and 208 Church St. 



Our Illustrations Photographed from Nature. 



To make our CatalogTies strictly acciirate and to set forth, actual appearance and 

 real merits without the exaggeration that so flagrantly appears in nearly all the seed 

 catalogues published, led us some years ago to adopt the method of PHOTOGRAPH lO 

 REPRODUCTION on half-tone plates, which has gived our MANUAL an vmique repu- 

 tation for truthfulness and accuracy corabined with beauty. This season we also show, 

 on the cover of our Catalogue, specimens of vegetables photographed in actual colors 

 by an entirely new and w^onderful process. This has brought forth many favorable 

 comments from leading agricultvirists and newspapers, a few of which we publish below. 



From the AMERICAN FTORTST, Chicago. 

 Issue of February g, 1895. 



We have watched with interest the increa-sing u§e of the 

 half-tone photo-engraving in illustrating catalogues. In 

 many cases such engravings, owintc generally to the neces- 

 sity for cheap paper in catalogues, have not been very satis- 

 factory, though an oocaisionul excellent one ha.4 shown the 

 great value of the process. It requires a special combination 

 of Tvell-etched plates, good paper, careful press-work and the 

 right kind of ink to produce the right results. Messrs. 

 Johnson & Stokes, Philadelphia, seem to have found the 

 charmed combination, and tlieir 1895 catalogue attests the 

 great value of such plates correctly used. It is a distinct 

 advance in this line and we extend uur congratulations. 



Written for AMERICAN FLORIST by a 

 well-known agriculturist. 



Have just read your article referring to half-tone photo- 

 engravings contained in your issue of February 9. I am very 

 glad to see that y»u consider the subject worthy of special 

 mention, and that you so freely give honor where honor is 

 due. I not only fully concur witli you in all that you have 

 published reganling the matter, but will say further, that in 

 my humble opinion the time will soon arrive in the history 

 of the seed trade when sensational and ridiculously over- 

 drawn electrotypes and woodcuts will become a feature of 

 the forgotten past, and half-tone engravings from nature only 

 will be utilized in the construction of our seed catalogues of 

 the future. 



Any schoolboy can throw adjectives together proclaim- 

 ing every known and unknown possible and impossible mer- 

 itorious qualit.v in connection with vegetables, fruits, etc., to 

 be imagined by the most fertile brain, but it must remain 

 for the art of the photo-engravins: process to sub-tantiate 

 before the eyes of the seed buyer, at least in part, some of the 

 strong claims contained in the seed catalogues of to-day. 



From the Editor of the FARM JOVRNAL, 

 Fhiladelphia. 



I have just received yournew see<l catalogue for 1895 and 

 looked it through. How much the half-tone cuts improve H! 

 It is astonishing other seedsmen do not follow your example 

 more than they do. 



From the PUBLIC LEDGER, Philadelphia. 



Novelties in vegetables and flowers are all right, so far 

 as they are true novelties and selected by jiracticjil growers; 

 but unfortunately many so-called novelties are neither the 

 resultof culture nor selection by practical workers in the Held, 

 but altogether the product of the sensational seed merchant, 

 who does his farming at his desk, with his pen for his plow, 

 drawn by an imagination so fertile as to have exhausted the 

 vocabulary of the English language, to which he adds pictures 

 and ilhistrations, often portrayed in such an unilignitled 

 and offensive manner as to bring his business down to the 

 level otthe mountebank. In no business of the present day 

 is there so much humbug nnd misrepresentation as in the 

 seed business — misrepresentation in description of color, 

 form and merit of vegetables and flowers, due, on one hand, 

 to ignorance, and on the other to design, by illustrations or 

 pictures of monstrous and impos-sible vegetables and flowers; 

 pictures of farms situated on the moon or some other inaccess- 

 ible place; bunco tricks, all schemes to catch theeyeand take 

 the money of tlie confiding gardener. Market gardeners 

 who spend their own cash are not so ready to fall victims 

 to the modern catalosue seedsman. 



This reprehensible practice, originated by English seeds, 

 men, has been adopted in this country, and, as Americans do 

 not like to be outdone by Britons, they have gone, not one 

 better, but advanced by strides and jumps, till the English 

 seedsman hides his bead in abashment at bis own insignifi. 

 cance. 



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