2 D. M. FERRY & GO'S DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 



OUR OAKVIEW STOCK SEED FARMS. 



These are located in Oakland County, Michigan, within easy reach of Detroit, and comprise nearly three hundred acres, in 

 the charge of a skillful and experienced superintendent, and under our constant personal supervision. They are devoted to the 

 production of the stock seed from which the seeds we offer you are grown. Everyone who visits these farms expresses sur- 

 prise and admiration at the work done and the results accomplished there. The method is as follows: from our growing crops 

 of each variety we select a few, say ten plants, which are as nearly perfect as possible. In this work we spend many days 

 carefully studying the plants, considering every point of merit, not only of the fruit but in the habit of the plant, its vigor, 

 hardiness and productiveness. The seed of each of these ten is saved separately and planted at Oakview in a plot by itself. 

 These lots are carefully studied, and the one which shows the most merit and uniformity, and is judged most likely to repro- 

 duce itself is selected. The seed from this plot is planted the next season by itself and the crop is carefully examined, plant 

 by plant, and every inferior one rejected. This work is repeated until we have a sufficient quantity of seed to plant large 

 fields, when it is sent out to be grown for us and the seed thus produced is what we offer you, being in nearlj' every instance 

 traceable to some single plant of superior merit. Can you afford to risk the success of your garden on seed saved from what 

 was left on the plants after the best fruit had been gathered for the table, or upon what some unscrupulous dealer 

 has bought where he could get it the cheapest, when you can so easily get this pedigree seed grown with every care which 

 experience can suggest? Even the mathematician feels the necessity of proving his work, and the quality of the seeds we offer 

 is so important a matter to us that we cannot rest content, no matter how much pains we have taken in the production of 

 them, untU we prove that they are of superior quality. This we do at 



OUR TRIAL GROUNDS. 



These are located in Detroit, and here a sample of every lot of seed we offer is tested first to see that it will grow well, and 

 then it is planted, together with the samples of the same kind procured from other seedsmen, and those of any new variety we 

 can hear of. They are carefully cultivated and studied by experts, and if some other seedsman has secured a strain of any- 



particular sort which is in any way superior to our own, or if any of the new kinds are of real merit, we lose no time and spare 

 no money in procuring seed and growing some for our customers, while if the novelty proves to be inferior, as most of them 

 do, exaggerated claims of merit on the part of their introducers cannot persuade us into offering them to our customers. The 

 care with which this work is done will explain why the pages of this book are not filled with accounts of wonderful new sorts, 

 incomparably superior to common kinds. On the other hand we sometimes find a variety which has been so modestly intro- 

 duced that although it is of real merit, it has been brought to the notice of but very few. In many instances sorts which are 

 now recognized as the best of their class were originally introduced in such a way as to be quite overshadowed and lost sight 

 of because of the louder claims made for worthless novelties introduced at the same time, and they probably would have been 

 lost to general cultivation if we had not, through our Trial Grounds, recognized their merit and introduced them into general 

 use. Our customers may rest assured that no good thing in the seed line will be withheld from them, and that they can pro- 

 cure from us the finest strains of every new variety as soon as its claims of merit are proven. 



No matter how carefully seeds are grown or how superior they may be, it would avail but httle without ample and effici- 

 ent means of handling and getting them into the hands of planters. In this Hne our facilities have kept pace in development, 

 with those for producing the seed, and as they are w-orked out in brick and mortar are more easily seen and understood. 



OUR SEED WAREHOUSE "A," 



Located on the corner of Brush Street and Monroe Avenue, was built by us in 1887, and covers one-half a city square, extend- 

 ing 300 feet on Brush Street and 130 feet each on Monroe Avenue and Champlain Street. It is seven stories high besides the 



