From the History page of the Burpee website:
Soon after David Burpee took over the company’s management, World War I precipitated a shortage of seeds—but also made America rather than Europe the world’s leading seed supplier. Today, most Americans know about (and the older ones remember) the Victory Gardens of World War II, but the “War Gardens” of World War I are all but forgotten. This reminiscence was written by David Burpee:
“Food will win the war , we were told by Washington and I decided the best way I could help our country’s war effort was by showing people how to grow a good share of their food right in their own back yards. To dramatize this, I set up what we called War Gardens in a number of cities. The biggest attention-getter was the one in New York. It was in Union Square, directly opposite an imitation battleship bristling with wooden guns aimed at the tomatoes and cabbages. It was a huge success. I would guess that that garden alone must have started thousands of people gardening.”
. . .
Flowers were David Burpee’s great love, and during those years Burpee’s “Hall of Fame” was enhanced by the Double Hybrid Nasturtium (1934), Crown of Gold Marigold (1937), Red and Gold Marigold (1939), and many others. Marigolds were David’s particular favorites—and are still Burpee’s most popular flower seeds—so it is not surprising that a great many of the world’s most outstanding marigold varieties have been developed at Burpee.
. . .
Horticulture took another giant step during the 1940s, when Burpee’s experimental breeders began to use tiny amounts of a natural substance from the crocus plant called colchicine to “shock” the chromosome structures of flowers, thus getting them to burst forth in spectacular new forms. Snapdragons are especially inclined to benefit from this treatment. This is why the blossoms of Super Tetra Snapdragons, such as Bright Scarlet and Rosabel , stand out like dazzling beauty queens. Colchicine also enabled researchers to transform the common wild black-eyed Susan into a magnificent garden flower called the Gloriosa Daisy, and gave us the Ruffled Jumbo Scarlet Zinnia with blooms up to seven inches across!
. . .
One might say that the 1940s, which brought still more hybridizing experiments and the enormous Victory Garden Movement of World War II, ended the first era of Burpee history and ushered in the modern era of home gardening. Since World War II, there have also been historic experiments—and dramatic advances—in agriculture. Such changes have affected not only the large farms and house vegetable gardens that typify prosperous western nations but even the small family plots of subsistence farmers in underdeveloped countries. In addition, our current era is marked by a new awareness of the environment and a new enthusiasm for activities that directly involve us with nature.
The entire article is well worth reading. Burpee is a grand old American company.
My husband gets most of his vegetable plants from Burpee. It’s always fun to check out their catalog each winter and daydream about big tomatoes fresh from the garden.
What are you planting this year?
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