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GERMAIN FRUIT COMPANY’X 
ing of specific seed crops have scarcely been scratched To the student of our rural economy this is 
well understood, and hence agriculture and horticulture have attracted some of the best brawn, brain 
and bank from all parts of the world to California. Here and there an opening has been made, a 
beginning inaugurated, a success attained. Certain localities have proven exceptionally favorable for the 
growth of certain seeds and plants; other localities are still to be exploited. These embryonic begin¬ 
nings give encouragement for the future, and lead us to survey the subject of seed production more in 
detail. 
An Historical View. 
From the above it must not be inferred that experimental seed farms are only of recent introduction. 
Far from it; as early as 1851 seed growing was a feature of the landscape in Sacramento County, and 
later its introduction was more or less carried on in Santa Clara County. These early efforts were 
mainly the result of local conditions. Seeds were hard to obtain, owing to the great cost of bringing 
them around the Horn by water, or else overland by wagon; naturally prices were correspondingly high. 
From Professor E. J. Wickson’s "California Vegetables,” we learn that in 1851 Mr. John M. Horner, 
of Alvarado, produced 1150 pounds of garden seed; later, in 1857, Mr. A. P. Smith, of Sacramento, 
had some twenty acres devoted in garden seeds. That he had done a good business even before that 
date, is shown by the following paragraph taken from the reports of the State Agricultural Society of 
1858: " To his vegetable seed department, Mr. Smith turned his attention at an early day, and has 
pursued it till now he devotes twenty acres of ground, and the time of several laborers, and from it 
reaps a merited reward. His crop of seeds for the last four years has reached from 3,000 to 4,000 
pounds per annum, which up to 1858 averaged $3.00 per pound.” Another pioneer seed grower was 
D. L. Perkins, of Alameda. At the State Fair in 1860, he and Mr. Smith took several premiums on 
garden seeds. The committee on awards reported both exhibits as being of high merit, and predicted 
that " the time is at hand when our gardeners will be saved the time, trouble and expense of looking 
abroad for their seeds.” This, in so far as the committee were concerned, referred to local demands. 
" Mr. Perkins,” to quote from WicksoiPs book " California Vegetables,” " looked beyond that. In his 
statement submitted with a claim for a gold medal, at the State Fair in 1867, uses the significant 
words: ” 
□□ppppppppppppppppppppppp ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp 
n □ 
g “For the past ten years all my time has been given to the g 
g raising of seeds . . . striving to get the best seeds from all parts g 
g of the world. During the past three years I have sent collections g 
g of seeds to be tested at the East, and the results in the size and g 
g quality over the same varieties grown there have been so marked that g 
g several parties have ordered from me, thus showing that California g 
g can compete with the world for garden seeds. There is no State g 
g in the Union so well adapted to the raising of seeds as California, g 
g During five years past I have sent samples of my product to Japan, g 
g China, Sandwich Islands, Mexico and to Europe.” g 
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Mr. Perkins, however, did not exploit the infant industry to the brilliant future he predicted, but 
directed his energies in other directions. During the early seventies R. W. Wilson, an experienced 
seed grower of Rochester, N. Y., began seed farms near Santa Clara, and on commercial and scientific 
grounds may be considered the father of seed production for the export trade in California. Commenc¬ 
ing with 50 acres of land devoted to onion, lettuce, carrot and beet seeds, he did reasonably well, but 
sold out after a few years to Kellogg & Morse, who continued the business until 1889, when the busi¬ 
ness was succeeded by others. This business has grown and expanded until it occupies a leading 
position in the American seed trade, and has had many followers, now in certain lines, California- 
grown seeds lead the world. Nor is the production far from being limited or confined, but embraces 
all garden and field seeds, flower seeds, bulbs, and quite a variety of tree and shrub seeds. With many 
varieties superior strains have been developed by careful selection, which have become recognized the 
world over as superior to the eastern and foreign grown seed. 
These basic facts and conditions are self-evident. From the time Perkins made his prediction for a 
grand future for California, as a seed producing section, to the time that Peter Henderson, probably the 
