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[Image: Decorative banner with text-Novelties for 1889.]
Novelties for 1889

This list contains "the cream" of all the novelties for this season. As the introducers of so many varieties of sterling merit, which are now listed by many of the most prominent houses in the United States, we have only to say that we have exercised our usual strict care to offer only those varieties which have proven to be decided improvements on the older kinds. Being in correspondence with the leading seedsmen, seed growers and horticulturists in this country and Europe, we receive samples of varieties claimed to be new from all over the world, and test their merits on our own grounds. We had about 600 varieties of seeds and potatoes in our test this year. Our Perfect White Spine Cucumber, Early Des Moines Sweet Corn, Market Gardener's Beet, Table Guernsey Parsnip, Page's Striped Rice Pop Corn, Improved Ground Cherry, Vine Peach, Bonanza Potatoes and Profit Corn, have become standard varieties with all who have once grown them. If you have not grown them, don't fail to try them this year, and it will pay you to try any or all of the varieties named in this list.

[Image: Drawing/Scratchboard Illustration, Beet. Overprinted text-Market Gardeners' Beet.]

Iowa Seed Co.'s
New Market Gardener's Beet.

This is undoubtedly one of the best novelties ever introduced, and it has received much praise from our customers during the past year, as well as leading eastern horticulturists. Its shape and color are well illustrated on the cover of this catalogue, and are all that can be desired. Ten years ago in a field of Henderson's Pineapple Beet, grown on our seed farm in Madison county, we discovered some differing in shape from that valuable old variety. We have each year kept up this constant selection, keeping in mind this ideal shape, color and size, until this year we think we have as near perfection as can be attained. As will be noticed, it is very symmetrical, with small tap root and but few fibrous roots. Unusually small tops. At the age of the Egyptian it is larger, while it continues to grow until late in the fall, attaining a large size and making a good selling and eating beet for winter. By the first of October they measure eight inches in diameter and average six pounds each in weight. One sowing only is necessary to produce early beets for market and main crop for winter use, which is not the case with any other variety.

Color outside is deep blood red; inside layers of blood-red and light red alternately. When cooked they are a beautiful dark red throughout, fine grained and unsurpassed in quality.

Summing it all up, we find in it the Best Beet for Early Market, the Best Beet for Winter Use, and owing to the small tops permitting them to be grown close together, and the peculiar shape of the bulb, it is the Most Profitable Beet for the Market Gardener and for the family garden of any we know of.

We want each one of our thousands of customers throughout this country to give this Beet a trial, and we know they will find we have not given it too high praise. Per pkt. 10 cts.; oz. 25 cts.; 1/4 lb. 75 cts.

Greenfield, Iowa, Aug. 28, '88: - I shall sow only your New Market Gardener's Beet after this; it is as early as the earliest and makes the best late beets from the same sowing. Its shape and quality are perfect.
M. Kurtzweil, Market Gardener.

West Windham, N. H., Oct. 18, '88: - Your Market Gardener's Beets were extra nice. They grew well and were the largest of my garden beets with nice, well formed bulbs. John D. K. Marshall.