2 D. M. FERRY & CO’S DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 
HOW OUR SEEDS ARE TESTED. 
At our Trial Grounds on Ferry Avenue, in Detroit, a sample of each lot of seeds we handle is tested for vitality, 
to find how many seeds in one hundred will grow, and also for purity and quality of stock. These tests, along 
with the inspections of the crops as they grow in the field, make it impossible for any of our stocks to deteriorate 
or become impure without our speedily finding it out. Here also are planted samples of all the ‘novelties intro- 
duced by other seedsmen, and anything which is claimed to be new and superior grown by amateurs that they 
may send us. By this means we are enabled to satisfy ourselves of the value of any novelty before it can find 
a place on our list. These grounds consist of about ten acres and are under the management of a competent super- 
intendent and are pronounced by disinterested observers to be the most complete of their kind in this or any other 
country. 
WHERE OUR SEEDS ARE STORED. 
After the seeds are grown they must all be brought to our Central Seed Warehouses, located on the corners of 
Brush Street and Monroe Avenue (formerly Croghan Street). The warehouse built by us in 1887 covers one-half a 
city block, extending 300 feet on Brush Street and 120 feet each on Monroe Avenue and Champlain Street. It nas 
six stories, besides a basement, affording between seven and eight acrers floor surface. 
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Even with this large space, however, we had become so cramped for room to store and properly handle the 
increasing -quantities of seeds needed to meet our requirements, that we built another large warehouse by the side 
of our box factory during the summer of 1891. This building faces Monroe Avenue. It is 85 feet wide, 140 feet 
feet deep, and has eight stories and a basement, thus giving us fully one-half more floor space. Everything about 
this building is after the most approved plan of Seed House construction and is fully as substantial and well 
adapted to our purposes as our warehouse described above. 
OUR BOX FACTORY. 
Standing between our warehouses is our box factory. This three story brick building, erected and maintained 
especially for the manufacture and repair of our boxes, supplies heat and power to our warehouse, and in our busy 
season keeps 100 men at work with numerous machines designed especially for us. These machines accomplish every 
kind of mechanical work, from sawing and planing rough lumber to nailing. screwing and sandpapering the finished 
box. We make annually 35,000 boxes, requiring three quarters of a million feet of cherry, walnut and pine. Our 
use of lumber is so extensive that we maintain a lumber yard of our own. 
OUR CANADIAN BRANCH. 
We also have a separate branch house in Canada for the better accommodation of our large business there. This 
house is located at Windsor, Ont., and from it we execute promptly all orders in large or small quantities by mail, 
express or freight, without any of the vexatious delays and expensive processes of entering and paying duties. Our 
stocks are imported directly into Canada, and a duplicate will be found there of nearly everything we sell in the 
States. The advantages of this arrangement to our Canadian friends cannot be over estimated, as it places them on 
a par with our patrons in the States. 
