Seed catalogues 2: The John Johnson Collection

The early seedsmen's catalogues in the John Johnson Collection were identified and removed to guardbooks. They are cited in the pioneering work of John Harvey in Early horticultural catalogues: a checklist of trade catalogues issued by firms of nurserymen and seedsmen in Great Britain and Ireland down to the year 1850, . The shelfmarks (Johnson a.50 and Johnson d.1640) can be searched for in SOLO  Other Bodleian seed catalogues can be found by keyword searches on SOLO, or by referring to the annotated copy of Harvey (op cit) on the open shelves in the Special Collections Reading Room.

Seedsmen's lists and later catalogues remain in the Horticulture section (boxes and outsize folders).   The catalogues have not yet been digitised, except for Oxford seedsmen and nurserymen, which fall within Oxford Trade (box 5). These are available through the ProQuest project: The John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemera. Notable are late 19th century catalogues by C.B. Anstey.

Trade cards for Horticulture, Nurserymen and Seedsmen (Trade Cards 14 (2-14)) are available through the JJ online catalogue.

The image below shows a broadside Catalogue of American trees and shrubs that will endure the climate of England, issued by Christopher Grey/Gray, nurseryman in Fulham, c. 1740. He was the first to receive Magnolia grandiflora from North America into Britain, and to propogate it, in c. 1734.

John Johnson Coll. Horticulture large folder