Agricultural History Review, Volume 38 Part 1 (1990), pp. 58–71

The innovation and diffusion of commercial garden seed production in England forms the core of this paper, the first of two on garden seeds. Following some remarks on seed production in the three centuries before 1600 the nature, process and adoption of the innovation in agriculture that seed production represented is examined. It is concluded that Dutch immigrants in the sixteenth century and their descendants played a vital role in the initial introduction and subsequent spread of garden seed growing in England. The long continuity of production in some areas was determined by local soils and climates, as well as favourable social and institutional circumstances. Contemporary estimates of prices and costs show that garden seed growing was sometimes highly profitable, although uncertainty of yield and foreign competition could bring about losses. Using evidence from probate inventories, the way in which seed production was assimilated into farming at Sandwich is reviewed, and the paper also covers garden seed imports in the period. 

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