Publishing a book during a pandemic has several unique differences from earlier times. One is that everyone in the publisher's office is probably working from home. Another is that it seems to take longer for decisions to be made. That…
In the late nineteenth century the practice of public relations emerged though it was not called by that name. AT&T created a monopoly for its telephone. The one company owned all the other phone companies scattered around the country. In…
We can learn a great deal about gardening by looking at garden magazines. At the begining of the nineteenth century there was more interest and energy put into farming than cultivating a garden. Nineteenth century garden writers sometimes began their…
The sweet pea has long been a garden favorite. We owe its popularity to the seed trade from the late nineteenth century. James Vick (1818-1882), seed merchant from Rochester, New York, was reponsible for putting the sweet pea into the…
It wasn't always the case that a plant had a certain dollar value. Sometimes people planted what was available, what they loved, or what they could find. There was no question about the cost of the plant. Just because a…