Thought this was last year. I remember getting a really kewl mug with my order.

My plan this year is to try to order vegetable seeds ahead of the catalogs becoming available. Seems like a good year to freshen up the long-term storage.

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/269/nation/FARM_SCENE_Pioneering_plant_co:.shtml

FARM SCENE: Pioneering plant company Burpee celebrates 125 years of blooming business

By Tina Moore, Associated Press, 9/26/2001 03:25

WARMINSTER, Pa. (AP) A knot of giant sunflowers, a spread of fanciful impatiens in salmon, coral and orchid, and a wave of silver petunias are among the latest offerings from W. Atlee Burpee & Co., the seeds of which were sown 125 years ago.

''The next big thing: I'm always working on it,'' said George Ball, company president. ''We're always looking for not just a new color of petunia or a new size of marigold or tomato. We're looking for a new petunia, or a new marigold, or a new tomato.''

W. Atlee Burpee, who founded the seed company as a teen-ager in 1876, set out to make better vegetables and plants. He developed Golden Bantam Corn, Bush Lima Beans, Iceberg Lettuce and other well-known plant varieties.

Burpee didn't begin as a gardener, however. He took up poultry, livestock, dog and plant breeding as hobbies as a teen-ager.

He enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School at the insistence of his father, a physician, but dropped out to pursue his interest in breeding. He started his own poultry breeding business with a $1,000 loan from his mother.

''He was an animal geneticist. When he sold his chicks and dogs and sheep and pigs, (farmers) would ask him to supply them with seeds,'' Ball said.

Several years after founding W. Atlee Burpee and Co., Burpee bought Fordhook Farm, near Doylestown, Pa., in 1888. He used the farm for experiments in vegetable and flower growing, and sold seeds through a mail-order catalog with the slogan ''Burpee's Seeds Grow.''

It didn't take long for the company to grow, and by the 1890s it was the largest seed producer in the world. When Burpee died in 1915, the company was sending out a million catalogs every year. Many farmers knew they could trust the quality of plants from Burpee seeds, Ball said.

''New immigrants also used it to learn how to read,'' he said. ''A lot of rural people never went to school and they learned it by the Bible and the Burpee catalogs.''

Now, Burpee products offer the pleasure of gardening to more urban residents, Ball said.

The company continued to grow and change under Burpee's son, David, and was acquired in 1991 by Chicago-based Ball Seed Co., which Ball owns with his sister.

Ball said he believes he is part of a ''timelessly attractive business.''

''It's very easy to see that there's a great need for homegrown vegetables and fruits,'' he said. ''And what makes a person feel better than fresh-cut flowers?''

The colorful Burpee seed packets the company is perhaps best known for began arriving in general stores in the early 1900s. Today, the seeds are sold in superstores alongside gardening supplies.

The business changed in the 1990s, when the Internet began generating business. It now accounts for about 10 or 15 percent of the company's sales.

Burpee tests and inspects new products from breeders and is always in search of larger, meatier tomatoes and plants that produce more crescent moon eggplants or balloon peppers.

''There's tons of new things every year,'' said Colby Wolfe, a horticulturist and company spokesman.

While the company is well-known for its flower seeds, it has always had a soft spot for its vegetables.

''They're what we started with. They're what we've stuck with, and that's what people know us for,'' he said.

The company has always worked to be ahead of gardening trends and has recently been experimenting with flowers and grasses to create self-sufficient gardens.

''People seem to be wanting low maintenance,'' he said.

He said the company is looking forward to another 125 years of new products, including the peekaboo a flower with a dark brown eye in its center crowned by a yellow halo and a marigold that smells like the French liqueur Pernod.

On the Net:

Burpee: http://www.burpee.com/

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2001