W. Atlee Burpee
| Washington Atlee Burpee | |
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Washington Atlee Burpee
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| Born |
April 5, 1858 Sheffield, New Brunswick |
| Died | November 26, 1915 (aged 57) Doylestown, Pennsylvania |
| Known for | Burpee Seeds |
| Children | David Burpee |
Washington Atlee Burpee (5 April 1858 – 26 November 1915) was the founder of the W. Atlee Burpee & Company, now more commonly known as Burpee Seeds.
Atlee was born in 1858 in Sheffield, New Brunswick, Canada but he moved to Philadelphia as a child, where his father practiced medicine. Both his father and grandfather were prominent in medicine. At fourteen, Atlee was already actively breeding chickens, geese and turkeys. A skilled breeder, he corresponded with poultry experts worldwide and wrote scholarly articles in poultry journals. In 1876, an 18-year-old Atlee started a mail-order chicken business out of the family home with $1,000 (equal to $22,491 today) loaned to him by his mother and a partner. Poultry farmers from the Northeast already knew of his talents, and he soon opened a store in Philadelphia, selling poultry and also corn seed for poultry feed. It wasn't long before his customers started requesting cabbage, carrot, cauliflower and cucumber seeds. In 1878, Burpee dropped his partner and founded W. Atlee Burpee & Company. The company soon switched to primarily garden seed, but live poultry wasn't dropped from the Burpee catalog until the 1940s.
By 1888, the family home, Fordhook Farm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was established as an experimental farm to test and evaluate new varieties of vegetables and flowers, and to produce seeds. Before World War I, Atlee spent many summers traveling through Europe and the United States, visiting farms and searching for the best flowers and vegetables.
Atlee shipped many of the vegetables and flowers he found to Fordhook Farms for testing. Those plants that survived were bred with healthier types to produce hybrids better suited to the United States. Fordhook Farms was the first laboratory to research and test seeds in this way. Fordhook Farms specialized in testing onions, beets, carrots, peas and cabbage.
Burpee was known for his philanthropy in regards to the poor in Philadelphia. He generously supported and sat on the board of Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission which was one of the first homeless shelter and soup kitchens in America.
In 1909, Burpee established Floradale Farms in Lompoc, California, to test sweet peas, and Sunnybrook Farms near Swedesboro, New Jersey, to test tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and squashes. In his travels, Atlee met Asa Palmer, a Pennsylvania farmer who raised beans, and who thought he had one plant that was resistant to cutworms. Burpee turned this bean plant into what is now known as the Fordhook lima bean, one of the company's most famous items.
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