the greeting and good wishes which we send with this new issue of our Annual 

 all our customers, old and new, we have a few words to say on the conduct of our 

 business, to which we invite your special attention. 



Perhaps it has been noticed that it is our custom each year to offer only a very few novelties. 

 We can assure our readers, however, that our failure to do so does not arise from ignorance, or want 

 of energy. There has scarcely been a so-called new sort offered for many years, which we have 

 not seen growing, either in our trial-grounds or in the hands of the originators, long before it was 

 offered to the general public. By careful testing and examination, we have usually found these 

 much-lauded novelties, no better, or inferior to older sorts, and we think that in such cases we 

 serve our patrons best by refusing to add them to our lists. Our introduction of such sorts as the 

 Golden Wax Bean, Prize Head Lettuce, Peerless Water Melon, and White Star Potato, proves 

 that if a sort really has merit, we are not backward in making it known, and bringing it into gen- 

 eral cultivation. When we remember that most of our garden vegetables have been in cultivation 

 for centuries, and that in spite of all effort to improve them, a permanently good and valuable 

 sort has not been produced oftener than once in five or ten years, the absurdity of each year 

 offering a list, one-fourth of which are claimed to be new and improved sorts, is evident. 



In place of the fulsome praise of each and every variety with which seedsmen's catalogues 

 are often filled, we have endeavored to give full and accurate descriptions of the varieties we have 

 to offer, so that the reader may be guided to a wise choice of the variety best suited to his par- 

 ticular needs, and farther, we have in the article on " Formation and Management of Vegetable 

 Gardens," as well as in our cultural directions, tried to give such full instruction for the culture 

 and management of the various plants, that anyone who will carefully study and follow them, 

 will meet with success. These directions are not simple compilations, but are the result of not 

 only our own experience, but of that of the best cultivators all over the land, and can be trusted 

 as reliable. 



We make no pretense of selling $2.00 worth of seeds for 25 cents. We believe few of our 

 readers would care to purchase gold watches claimed to be worth $100, but offered and advertised 

 in all the papers of the country at $10. In cases like this it is safe to conclude that the article is 

 really dear at the price asked for it. Seeds are a commodity, the production and sale of which 

 are governed by the same principles that control all other kinds of business and one can expect 

 to purchase $2.00 worth of seeds for 25 cents with just as much reason as he can hope to gather 

 figs from thistles. Such flash advertisements and " special offers " are losing their attraction with 

 careful and intelligent buyers. , 



We do claim, however, that we can and will sell you the best of seeds that the wide world 

 affords, at prices as low as seeds of equal quality can be obtained for, and we ask your attention 

 to a brief account of some of our facilities for doing this, first, 



Our Oreenfield Seed FarniS, which are located just outside of Detroit, ex- 

 tending one and one-fourth miles along tlie Grand River Road. They are nearly level, but are 

 well underdrained by tile laid two rods apart and three to four feet deep. The soil is partly sandy 

 and partly clay loam, and very rich, as we annually use two or three thousand two-horse loads of 

 stable manure, besides about four thousand barrels of blood, meat and bone, which is composted 

 with lime, plaster and sulphuric acid, so as to make an excellent superphosphate. The labor is 

 mostly performed by German women, we sometimes having as many as 125 at work at once. 

 Their manner of work is well shown in the cut on next page. 



