m 
I 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 Greenfield Seed Karins, which are located just outside of Detroit, ex¬ 
tending one and one-fourth miles along the 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 i-> 
mostly performed by German women, we sometimes having as many as 125 at work at once. 
1'heir manner of work is well shown in the cut on next page. 
