Washington Atlee Burpee

A key in Burpee's business was the 1863 free delivery system that required post offices to deliver mail to residents' homes and in 1896, free delivery was extended to rural areas. This allowed his catalogs to be delivered directly to people's homes. Thousands of letters were received annually from Burpee's customers thanking him for his seeds. Burpee knew that the key to his business was advertising and the catalog was his advertising medium.

In his first year of business, his catalog was 48 pages, but by 1915 his catalogs were 200 pages and he distributed a million catalogs. Burpee personally wrote most of the copies of his catalogs. Burpee set up an advertising department and offered cash prizes for the best advertisements. This competition is what originated the slogan "Burpee Seeds Grow" in 1890. The 1891 catalog was the first to feature engravings made from photographs, and by 1901 this process was done by machines. Burpee's move to photography changed the whole industry and the hand-drawn illustrations in catalogs disappeared. In another break with tradition, Burpee eliminated cultural information and put in testimonial letters and plant descriptions.

At Burpee's death in 1915, the company had 300 employees, and it was the largest seed company in the world. At that time the Burpee company distributed over 1 million catalogs a year and received 10,000 orders a day.