STEELE'S PANSY GARDENS 
PORTLAND, OREGON, U. S. A. 
HOWDY FOLKS: 
Greetings to you and all of the thousands who will receive a copy of 
this message which my Grandpop Steele has asked me to send you. 
“You know, Ann Marie, all that host of names in these card indexes 
are those who honored us by asking for more news about those famous 
pansies that were brought into existence by us to celebrate the end of . . . 
‘The Horse and Buggy Days,’ and which means the beginning of the days 
when we began doing things better than we did before.’’ 
And Pop says you must save time and labor in order to earn a profit 
in your industry. Pop says he was a plow boy on a farm in Iowa when he 
was twelve years old and his daddy didn’t own a horse and buggy either. 
Here is one of Pop’s stories of those early da}’s concerning another farmer: 
A newly-wed boy had taken up a homestead and purchased two half¬ 
wild steers, yoking them together as a plow team. But they did not take 
kindly to hard labor and the white-faced steer became so unruly that 
Farmer Bill decided to hitch himself alongside the wild and woolly young¬ 
ster and show him how to get busy on his job. But wbat a circus for Bill, 
and he decided that it was help he needed. He hailed a neighbor shouting, 
“Hold ! Stop us! We’re headed for the woods.’’ Bill’s judgment was faulty but 
he made the yoke of steers do their bit and earn their keep. And you, dear brother, can do the same, if you are built that way. 
Came the panic days of 1893. Pop married in ’92, lost his shirt soon after. Grew a few pansy plants in ’93. 
Sold them for $2.50. 1894 teaching school at a salary O. K. for Horse and Buggy days. Grew 10,000 plants into 
bud and bloom—no market—offered to deliver same to Portland Seed Co. in bloom for Ic apiece. Refused. Packed 
same in baskets, crated and shipped same, express prepaid on consignment and took all chances of loss at 65c per 
basket and net receipts for crop were $275.00. Then came thirteen years principalship and Nana Steele in command 
of the garden and also of three husky boys and two girls, one of whom became my mother, Isabelle, a graduate of 
Oregon State College, as is likewise my daddy, John Layman. 
Then years of hard W’ork, week days, nights and holidays and Pop says that some days he forgot it was Sunday. 
I nion hours? No! Overtime pay? No! Double time? Yes! Extra cash, little. 
His kind friends and neighbors were full of sympathy and advice and pointed out to Pop the myriads of rain¬ 
bows of promise around him reflecting pots of gold on the horizon, and beckoning to him, the prosperity within his 
reach. One kindly Irish motorman old enuf to be Pop’s father said, “Son, grow some spuds!’’ 
-Nineteen hundred and five came the World’s Fair in Portland, Oregon. Mastodon pansies in the “Sunken 
Gardens”. Followed orders from Newfoundland to Mexico; from Alaska to West Indies; from the great parks, 
cemeteries, estates and commercial growers—Mastodon pansies were really “going to town”. 1914 came an order 
from the Panama Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, for 250,000 plants, all yellow for the South Gar¬ 
den fronting the row of great Exhibit Palaces one-half mile long and 400 feet wide. 
But w e really hadn’t seen anything yet. In early 1938 we received an order to air mail the makings of over a 
million pansy seedlings. Why? Because of the success of enormous plantings of iVIastodon pansies for the years of 
1^37 and 1938 at Santa Anita Park. 
The Scriptures tell about Joseph and his “Coat of many colors” and Pop Steele and Nana last February saw a 
huge carpet of pansies of all the rainbow colors. Commentators on the radio gave the pansies the glad hand, color pho¬ 
tographers took motion pictures and a venturesome airplane pilot took snap shots of that magic carpet of unsurpassed 
color and made 3-011 wonder how IMother Nature could paint a picture so beautiful to behold; and when the bugle 
sounded the last race of the season, Santa Anita beckoned the children and the grownups to come and take away as 
their own the pansies the management planted in honor of “The Sport of Kings”. 
POP STEELE SELLS HIS FIRST OUNCE OF SEED TO A LOCAL FLORIST IN THE LATE 90s 
One morning in early April Pop was stopped on his way to deliver some baskets of pansies to a local store to be 
sold at 65c per basket. 
“George Betz, Williams Ave. Florist, is the name. Would like you to grow an ounce of this seed for me.” 
“Sorry, George, but ymu couldn’t afford to pay the price.” 
“How much?” 
“Fourteen dollars!” 
Skillful producers, including farmers, are aware of the fact that quality of their crop must be such that the seed 
they use must have been grown by an organization of trained specialists. 
Anyone knows that a doubtful egg is a bad one, and the worst bargain on earth is a package of doubtful seed, 
and the more 3 'ou think about using it the less you will like the idea of using it. In fact you are not going back to 
Horse and Buggy days in buying seed. 
In 1938 our gardens listed 30 employees, mostly all with ten years or more of experience, and we’ll surely need 
them all in 1939. And now Pop has reached that unfortunate condition of mind where he might sav: “WE'* KNOW 
IT -ALL,” BUT SHOULD HE? 
What do \'ou think? Cordially, 
