Seed Corn to Shelterbelts
Will's Pioneer Brand helped settle the Northern Plains – and remains a popular ephemera collectible
By Oscar H. Will III and Erin C. Will
May 2005
 |
Opposite page, clockwise from top left:▪ 1895 photograph of Oscar H. Will taken by I.U. Doust, Syracuse, N.Y. Oscar was raised on a farm south of Syracuse at Pompey, N.Y. (State Historical Society of North Dakota 0029-001).▪ Early oat sack with Will’s Pioneer Brand and logo.▪ The back of a 1916 Pioneer Brand seed catalog.▪ This image, painted by White Crow, depicts Mandan women beneath their corn scaffold preparing the dried corn for winter storage. In the lower left, near White Crow’s signature, is an open cache pit ready to receive the season’s bounty.▪ George F. Will in 1925.▪ Confectionary sunflower seeds became a part of the Will & Co. operation in the mid-1930s. That aspect of the business continued until 1979.
|
The Pioneer Brand today is universally
associated with Pioneer Hybrids International, a DuPont company
headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. However, that trademark was
first associated with a Bismarck, Dakota Territory, seed and
nursery business created in the early 1880s by Oscar H. Will.
Will's Pioneer Brand seed served farmers and gardeners around the
world for more than 75 years, reaching customers through a
colorful, informative and now collectible annual mail-order
catalog. The value of that trademark was such that its sale to
Pioneer Hybrids proved it to be one of the largest assets of Oscar
H. Will & Co. in the late 1950s.
RELATED CONTENT
Iowa collection is 'corn fed'...
Oscar developed the Great Northern Bean from a handful of seed...
Oscar and his son, George F. Will, introduced important
agricultural varieties of corn and beans, in addition to hardy and
fast-maturing vegetables for northern gardens. It wasn't all about
seeds, however, as the company also introduced many hardy trees and
shrubs, including the Russian olive in 1906, and supplied millions
of trees to the windswept region. Although the company was
voluntarily liquidated in 1959, its legacy lives.
Heirloom seed suppliers continue to offer many of the company's
corn and vegetable seeds, and dry bean enthusiasts select Will's
Great Northern by the tons at grocery stores nationwide. Scholars
discuss the significance of the company's impact on modern
agriculture in the north, including a recent report that credits
Will's Northwestern Dent corn with providing at least 5 percent of
the genetic background of all modern corn hybrids in the U.S. And
people interested in early American commercial art - especially
related to agriculture - collect ephemera from the once thriving
company.
Cataloging history
Oscar published his first mail-order catalog in 1884 at
Bismarck, Dakota Territory, three years after he arrived there to
run Major Edward M. Fuller's greenhouse, garden and floral shop. It
was a modest, black-and-white piece with relatively few pages, and
a circulation of about 1,000. He offered trees, shrubs, flower and
vegetable seed, cut flowers, fresh vegetables in season, and he
continued to call the company the Bismarck Greenhouses &
Nursery, the name Fuller chose when it was established in 1881.
Within just a few years, the company's name was changed to Oscar
H. Will & Co. to reflect a brief partnership, and shortly
after, the moniker "Pioneer Seed House of the Northwest" appeared
on catalog covers along with the registered trademark "Will's
Pioneer Brand." By the early 1900s, the catalog had grown in size
and circulation, reaching as far as Russia, South Africa and
Colombia. The larger catalog featured a color cover and was more
agriculturally oriented, focusing especially on field corn, and
later hybrid field corn. At its peak, Will & Co.'s catalog grew
to more than 80 pages and had a circulation of about half a
million.
Page: 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Next >>