Vegetable & flower seeds from J.B. Rice, Jr., Inc. [Salesman sample flower seeds display packet catalogue featuring two silver gelatin photographs of the display rack, and 72 colour litho printed sample seed packets, all with their seeds.]

Shushan, NY: Jerome B. Rice, Jr., Inc., [Bert Boice, Commercial Photographer], ca. 1925]. 4to. [24 pp (unpaginated).], on thick gray paper stock, w/ 72 colour lithograph seed packets carefully mounted throughout, including 2 blank flyleaves, and with 2 linen-backed silver gelatin photographs, photographer imprint stamped on versos and lower blank margin, mounted on white linen hinges. Contemporary gray textured board 3-ring binder, printed label on front cover (partially torn, remnant of NY typed, wear, rubbing, bumping to corners), still good exemplar, with the photos and seed packets all in excellent condition. First edition of this remarkably scarce seed packet sample catalogue, featuring two photographs illustrating the wire racks supplied the company and how they should be displayed. These beautiful seed packets include Hibiscus, Blue Lace Flower, Calliopsis, California Poppy’s, Portulaca, Pansy’s, Marigolds, and many more. Founded originally in 1832 as a wholesale seed Company by Roswell Rice, and Cousin R. Niles Rice, the business grew slowly until he brought on his son Jerome B. Rice (1841-1912), a Civil War veteran who had returned from being imprisoned by the Confederates permanently disabled, but quickly built the Rice Seed Company into the second largest and profitable company in the United States, and the largest in New York. Rice, Jr. (1878-1949), was a scion of the storied seed company owners, and took over the company as President after his father’s death, expanding even through the Depression, and later became a subsidiary of Associated Seed Growers, Inc. in 1939, with Rice, Jr. remaining as President of the Company. Boice (b. 1873) was an active commercial photographer in and around Troy, NY during the first decades of the 20th Century. This copy is largely dated to the appearance of the Irving-Pitt Student’s Note Book ring binders appearing in stationery advertisements from 1922-1926. No copies located in Worldcat; See: The Rice Seed Company -- Cambridge, NY, Richard Clayton Photography (2020).