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f you travel back in time to 175 years ago, chances are you are a farmer.
IYour kids are going to grow up to be … a farmer. And so on.
Those beans you used to eat at your Aunt Tilly’s that were your favorite?
Well, now that you’re getting married and starting your own farm,
here are some seeds from Aunt Tilly as a wedding gift.
Go grow them.

Continue the tradition with your own children.
These are your heirlooms.

With Rich Giordano
With Rich Giordano
With Rich Giordano
The Tradition of Heirloom SeedsThe Tradition of Heirloom Seeds

Title Image: Butterfield Farm in Pompey, New York by Sanford Thayer, oil on canvas, the Onondaga Historical Association
The Growing Season their own immigration policies. Often members from different countries
Back in the early to mid-1800s, farming was a way of life whether or regions would settle into areas where they could work and support
you had acres and acres of land or just enough to have a garden to keep each other and partake of their traditions with one another. In the
your family fed. Seeds were harvested and handed down year after year, 19th century, a number of German immigrants landed in the Midwest
but only from those veggies or fruits or grains that were the best of the to buy farms and tended to congregate in Milwaukee, St. Louis,
best performers of the season. They tasted the best. Stayed fresh longer. and Cincinnati. Asian immigrants heard of the discovery of gold
Withstood pests better. Grew so plentiful they would increase the in California and over 25,000 Chinese had migrated by the early 1850s.
harvest and survive the flood or drought. It is estimated that between 1880 and 1920, over 20 million
A few generations later, people immigrants arrived in the U.S.
started to leave the family farm to That is a lot of mouths to feed. These people were trying to find
work at the factories, and within their way in a strange land. They all longed for the comforts of home.
one generation, a vast amount For many, nothing tasted better or gave them more comfort than food
of farming knowledge all but that grew from the seeds brought here from the “old country.” They were
disappeared. People were not sewn into clothing and stuffed in to every available pinch of space within
teaching new generations how to their meager posessions so that they would not be discovered or taken.
save seeds, or graft plants, or plant
those seeds that fed their families
for decades. Those skills that were
common to a 10-year-old were lost
as less people were tending the gar-
dens and the fields as the Industrial
Revolution came along.
Seed-keeping became part of
commercial farming businesses.
Many companies promoted the
“fresh” or good taste qualities of a
particular corn or bean with general
instructions on how to grow them,
but the taste of Aunt Tilly’s beans
The cover of an 1896 catalog from the were gone, and often, the nutri-
Robert Buist Co. in Philadelphia tional values decreased as a result.
One Immigrant’s Seed Story
The Immigrant Influence According to an older gentleman who was discussing gardening with
One wave of immigration into the U.S. occurred from 1815 to 1865 Rich Giordano while he was working at Old Sturbridge Village, the
and mostly came from Northern and Western Europe. While most taste of something from home made him feel hopeful and comfortable
came to improve their economic status, the Irish came in large numbers in his new country. His family emigrated from a small village in Italy to
to escape the massive famine taking place back home. In the 1840s, the U.S. before World War I. Before they left, they wanted to bring
almost half of America’s immigrants were from Ireland. some seeds from some of their favorite foods. Understanding this could
Prior to the 1892 opening of Ellis Island, individual states regulated
be a tricky thing to do, they sewed the seeds into the hems of their

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