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W. G. KELLY 
FOUNDER 
AND 
OWNER 
| OF 
KELLY SEED CO. 

The year he was twenty-one, started to harvest July 2. Harvested almost every day, 
stacking straw day after day for the big wages of $2.50 per day,(of about 13 hours.) Fin- 
ished harvesting on October 16, thirty-five miles from the Canadian border. .Came home 
on Saturday. Started husking corn Monday. Husked and cribbed 4,350 bushel of corn that 
fall, much of it down and damaged by drought, until it only made ,about 40 bushel per acre. 
After corn was husked, started to work for Hibbard-Spencer-Bartlett Company, a large 
wholesale firm in Chicago, for $8.00 a week. (The present general sales manager started 
to work for this firm the same day for $5.00 a week.) 
September 5, 1905 he bought a small stock of hardware at San Jose, Illinois, with the 
money he had saved, and borrowed $1,150 to finish paying for the stock. 
In 1906, he started to buy and sellfarm seeds in a very limited way--by getting the sam- 
ples of seed the farmers had to sell and sending them to a wholesale house for a bid and 
then buying the seed. The hardware and seed businesses have always worked well together. 
In addition to the seed businesses, have two hardware stores at this time, a furniture 
store, implement business, grain business; and when nothing else to do, he farms several 
hundred acres, growing farm seeds of all kinds, He also feeds about 200 head: of cattle a 
year and from 300 to 500 head of hogs. It has been a long hard road which brings us up to 
today. 
To young men and women who read this, for your own good, don’t sit down and wait for 
the things you want to come to you. You are going to have to work some time in your life; 
and it is up to you to choose whether you want to work the early part of your life or when 
you are old and when it is really hard to work. Work hard, use your head, save and plan 
at least ten years ahead. Every dollar you save and put to work when you are young may 
be worth $25.00 forty years later. Ninety men and women out of every hundred at the age 
of 65 are dependent on their relatives or charity. Old age pension is nothing more than 
charity. 
Little does the present generation know or care of the hardships of their ancestors, 
Foundations were laid then for fortunes which built up the greatest nation in the world. 
Now with all the socialistic utopian ideas of these new dealers, it is almost a crime for a 
man to build up a fortune or a business which will give employment to thousands of people. 
Any fool can spend what generations have saved, but it takes brains and muscle to create 
wealth which no country can do much without. 
FIVE PECKS OF CORN, $6 PREPAID 
Medium or large flats only. This is our introductory hybrid assortment on which we 
lose money on every one we sell. However, we have found it to be the best way of introduc- 
ing our hybrids. Some of our largest dealers started growing our corn by getting one of 
these bargains and now Sell from 500 to 2,000 bushels a year, . 
We never sell but one of these assortments to a customer, so if you have bought one of 
these in the past, do not order one again. If you have never bought an assortment, take ad- 
vantage of this offer--five pecks, one peck each of five different hybrids, enough corn to 
plant ten acres for only $6 freight prepaid. You may Select the five hybrids or we will 
ship five pecks of the hybrids best adapted for your section. 
Last year we had to disappoint many of-our customers by not being able to secure enough 
bags to ship all orders for assortments, as one of these takes six bags. While bags still 
cost more than twice what they did two years ago, we think we shall be able to get enough 
bags for our hybrid corn. Please note this assortment furnished in only large or medium 
flats, 
