Excerpt from J. R. Ratekin and Son's Eighteenth Annual Seed Catalog, 1902: Farm, Field and Garden Seeds In making up our catalog we have tried to make it as comprehensive as possible, at the same time avoiding exaggerated descriptions or overdrawn ii lustrations as given by many other seed houses. From our first beginning in the seed business in 1884, it has steadily grown each year and is today as large if not the largest seed business, in our lines, to be found in the United States, our business extending to every state and territory in the union, last year. There must be some good reason for this, and it lies in the fact that our seed corn and all farm and garden seeds are strictly pure and true to name, are unsurpassed, not seed that has been carried over from year to year, that our prices are right and that me please and satisfy our customers. Our loss BY fire. On the night of February 2oth, 1901, we had the misfortune to lose our seed house by fire, it burning to the ground, de stroying every seed in our house as well as burning up over one-half million pieces of our printed matter, machinery, etc. Our new seed house. Owing to our greatly increased business, requiring still larger storage and shipping facilities to promptly execute all orders as well as more room for our large force of labor we employ to hand pick all our seeds, we have just completed our new seed house which is as large if not the largest of its kind in the world, it having floor space in all of over square feet, with average depth of 15 feet. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.