

GENERATIONS 
OF THE WILD FAMILY 
GROW FLOWERS 
My Grandfather Wild was the first of our 
family to grow flowers. That was back in 
1885—65 years ago. 


ie Grandfather, who loved beautiful flowers, pur- 
+ chased $45.00 worth of Peonies for his son, Gilbert, 
my father, who was then a boy of eight years. 
Father planted these plants back of the old home 
and three years later, when father was eleven, he 
shipped a single crate of these beautiful peony cut 
flowers to Omaha, Nebraska, in a carload of strawberries. The 
wholesaler readily sold them, and sent father $3.00—considerable 
money to a teen-age boy, who vowed he would con- 
tinue to grow flowers for all the years of his life, 
and he religiously kept that vow. 

1ST GENERATION 
JAMES B. WILD 
In time, as we extended our growing operations 
and increased our acreage, my father, who had 
trained me in the growing of perennials, operated 
the business under the name of Gilbert H. Wild & 
Son. Then, when in 1938, he passed away, the firm  2np GENERATION 
continued as it does today, under the same well- GILBERT H. WILD 
known name. My two sisters, Mrs. Alice Wild Hadley, St. Louis, 
Mo., and Mrs. Maxine Wild Mills, Sarcoxie, Mo., remained in the 
business. 

Now, the old name—Gilbert H. Wild & Son, con- 
tinues, for while my father is gone, my own two 
a! children, who were literally “raised” in the busi- 
ness from little tots, will carry on. It has long been 
my ambition to have my son, James, and my 
daughter, Shirley Gene, carry on after both Mrs. 
Wild and myself are gone, and I am both proud 
and pleased to tell you that both are enthusiastic 
about the raising of flowers and have great hopes 
and expectations to further develop and increase 
our growing operations. My sisters Alice and Maxine also have 
younger children who might some day be interested in the business. 
a 

3RD GENERATION 
ALLEN J. WILD 
Shirley Gene graduated from Cottey College in 1945, and Mis- 
souri University in 1947, and since then has given her full time to 
the business. ‘Jim’? completed his third year in os 
1950 at Missouri University, where he majored in cae 
Floriculture. He has since been busily engaged in 
working to develop outstanding new varieties of 
Peonies in our plantings. 
—Peony growing has been one of our biggest and 
and most important specialties for many years. 
We have accumulated what we consider a par- 
excellent group of varieties. We grow more than 
1,000 varieties on our 135 acres of Peony fields. 

4TH GENERATION 
JIM WILD 
Ginst Edition (1949) CATALOG in sparkling nat- 
ural colors of “Flowers from the Wilds of Missouri’ en- 
thusiastically received everywhere. 
Our 1949 catalog—our first retail book of hardy, dependable pe- 
rennials (Peonies, Iris, and Daylilies) was warmly welcomed and 
highly praised by Flower Growers of the nation. 
—To the thousands who sent us orders by mail, to others who 
wrote us complimentary letters, and to others who came in per- 
From The WILDS of Missouri” 
GILBERT H. WILD & SON 
SARCOXIE, MISSOURI 
ESTABLISHED 1885 
son to visit us, and to the occupants of over 10,000 cars who 
were thrilled to drive through our 1385 acres of peony fields 
when the beautiful flowers were in full bloom, we want to ex- 
press our sincere thanks. Our earnest hope is that we shall 
continue to merit your welcome patronage and your warm friend- 
ship. 
The production of our original catalog was an ambitious, difficult 
and costly undertaking. We were determined to eventually make 
our Flower Book the bible of perennials, featuring peonies, iris 
and daylilies. 
All illustrations shown in our catalog must be our own flowers. 
We photographed peonies in full bloom from our own fields in nat- 
ural colors—‘Kodachromes” and from these negatives we made 
color plates for our exclusive use. This was not the customary 
practice, which was to use available stock color plates. Our pic- 
tures must be true to name and as near an exact reproduction of 
variety it represented as was humanly possible by the camera and 
the engraver. The taking of color pictures from the actual blooms 
from our own fields was quite an undertaking, requiring a great 
deal of time and costing considerable money. We made a hundred 
or more color shots, but when these were developed, only a com- 
parative few—16 in all, passed our censorship. And, of course, 
all of these were not perfect, but they were representative of the 
varieties selected and described. We determined to take more and 
better color shots for our next (1950) edition, and we did, as our 
new catalog shows. 
Second Edition (1950) CATALOG—New varieties, 
new color subjects, more exciting, more complete, more 
bargains. 
The whole family—Mrs. Allen Wild, wife, my son, Jim, and 
daughter, Shirley Gene, worked tirelessly and— 
Our new catalog (1950) represents the combined efforts of the 
whole family. All of us—Mrs. Allen Wild, my wife, Jim, my son, 
and Shirley Gene, my daughter, have worked tirelessly and 
studied long hours with me to make this, the second edition of 
our flower book, better, more colorful, more interesting and more 
helpful than our first catalog. 
And I am indebted to many of our customers for their helpful 
suggestions and new ideas which we have incorporated in this 
issue, 
We had better success with some 16 new and additional Koda- 
chromes we took for our 1950 catalog, and we plan to add more 
colored pictures each year. 
Once again we take pride in presenting this list of the big four 
(Peonies, Iris, Daylilies and Daffodils) in an annual catalog. We 
were more than pleased with many fine letters we received in 
response to our last year’s catalog and sincerely hope you will 
find this one even better. 
One of the advantages we find in growing flowers is the fine 
people we meet when you visit our fields, and through your let- 
ters. We wish you could all see our flowers when they are in 
full bloom. May is Flower Time here in Sarcoxie—with Iris 
usually at their peak about May 10th and Peonies about May 
20th. The Daylilies bloom throughout the summer. Last year 
we shipped 12 refrigerator carloads of cut flowers besides local 
a m L., Air Freight and Express Truck shipments and Parcel 
Os 
